1938 Brough Superior Auctioned For Rs. 3.22 Crore, New World Record

A 1938 Brough Superior 750cc BS4 motorcycle has set new auction world record at Bonhams Stafford Sale by fetching GBP 331,900 (around INR 3.22 crore).

Popular for making the world's first superbike - the SS100, Brough Superior was known as the Rolls Royce of motorcycles. Now even after decades of its demolition, the fact has been proved again as a 1938 Brough Superior 750cc BS4 (aka Brough Superior 'four-cylinder') has been auctioned at Bonhams Stafford Sale for GBP 331,900 (around INR 3.22 crore). With this, the motorcycle has set a new world record price for a Brough Superior and for any British motorcycle sold at auction.

The auctioned 1938 Brough Superior 750cc BS4 is one of the eight bikes which were known as the 'Broughs of Bodmin Moore' and believed to have been scrapped over 50 years ago. However, they had been stored in the barns of a Cornish village home for the years and were found last year.

The bikes were found as some whole machines and others in parts, all submerged under decades of dust, old machinery parts and household clutter. The whole collection of motorcycles and parts together auctioned for GBP 7,52,625 (around INR 7.3 crore).

Brough Superior motorcycles were built in Nottingham, England from 1919 to 1940 and used by celebrated riders such as TE Lawrence, who was a British Army officer. He is also known as Lawrence of Arabia and owned eight Brough Superior bikes including an SS100, the bike he died riding in 1935. The Brough Superior 750cc BS4 was powered by a four-cylinder engine, which was a technological marvel during the time it was built. Only ten such motorcycles were built and only seven of them survive.