Matthew Vale 

My name is Matthew Vale and I have been interested in classic motorbikes and cars since I was a lad. I was born in the late 1950s, and started riding bikes and driving in the 1970s. Bikes ranged from an NSU Quickley moped, through the ubiquitous BSA Bantam, BSA 250SS, MZ 150 and 250 and Triumph T140E Bonneville. My first car was a 1966 Mini Countryman, my second car was a 1968 Triumph Spitfire, I have owned MGs and other Triumph sports cars over the years and I've ridden classic British bikes since my school days. When I reached 40 I decided to get a bike to restore and picked up a basket case 1970 Triumph T120R Bonneville which I restored, and followed it with a 1971 Triumph 250SS Blazer. Here is my Bonneville: and T25SS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I then started writing about my classic bike restoration and riding experiences, and with a couple of articles published in Classic Bike Guide, I started to write my first book on the BSA Unit Twins which was published in 2004. Here are a couple of pictures of the A65 Lightning I restored for that book:

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Since then I've been writing books, magazine articles and restoring classic bikes and cars, and in 2013 had my first car book, on the Lotus Elan, published. I'm still carrying out a nut and bolt restoration of a 1969 Lotus Elan Plus 2S, but have a nice albeit somewhat non standard 1968 Plus 2 as a 'daily' classic car. I am now retired from some 40 years in the IT industry and am spending my time writing, and carrying out voluntary work which includes being a Lengthsman on the Basingstoke canal. I  also enjoy photographing classic cars and bikes of the 50s, 60s and 70s and have built up a large collection of pictures which I make available to other authors. In addition I have collected an extensive archive of car and bike brochures and factory material from 1930s to the 1980s, again which I make available to other authors.