Clews Competition Motorcycles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clews Competition Motorcycles or CCM for short, is a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Blackburn, England. CCM was born out of the collapse of BSA's Competition Department in 1971.
Alan Clews, founder of CCM, was a successful Trials and Scrambles rider in the late 1960's. He wanted a lighter, more nimble and modern motocross bike, like the BSA factory engined 500cc works specials. When the BSA Competition Department went out of business, he saw his opportunity and bought all the works parts that were available. Clews started building motocross bikes in his garage. Not having works engines just made Clews develop his own extensive improvements to the standard BSA B50 500cc engine which could be had by breaking up existing BSA B50 MX bikes. His reputation grew as a builder of four-stroke motocross bikes that were capable of competing with the dominant two-stroke bikes. In the early 1970's, CCM came close to winning the 500cc Motocross world championship with rider John Banks.
Initially powered by BSA engines, the firm used Rotax engines during the 1980's and 1990's when production reached a peak of 3,500 annually.
Between 1983 and 1985 over 4000 CCM motorcycles were exported to North America badged as Can-Am motorcycles.[1]
In 1984, the firm secured a contract to produce the Rotax-engined Armstrong MT-500 [2] bikes for the British Army, and through overseas sales won a Queen's Export Award. (The MT-500 began as the Italian SWM XN Tornado, which Armstrong acquired the rights to in 1984 when SWM liquidated, and Armstrong modified it for military use.) When NATO chose the machine Harley-Davidson stepped in and bought the production rights to the MT-500 in 1987, adding an electric start, reducing weight, upgrading pollution standards, and building a 350 cc version. [3]
The CCM company was acquired by the Robson family in 1998 who procured Suzuki DR-Z400 engines. In 2004, the company ceased operations and its assets were bought by the original owner, Alan Clews who is currently rebuilding the operation.
