Greeves 25DC Sports Twin

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Perhaps not the most glamorous start in life, Bert Greeves cut his teeth in the motor industry by securing a Ministry of Work and Pensions contract to produce three-wheeled invalid transport under the brand name Invacar.

By 1952 he had branched out into motorcycle manufacture from his Thundersley base in Essex, adopting the Greeves name to give his two-wheeled machines a distinct identity away from the three-wheeled motability products. Greeves went on to produce road, racing, trials and scrambles machines over the next 40 years, most of their offerings having Villiers power units adapted and developed by Greeves for their particular use.

The Greeves 25DC Sports Roadster was brought into the 11 bike range in 1962 and replaced the earlier 25DB model. It had the Villiers 2T 249cc parallel twin two-stroke engine and ‘paddle hub’ wheels, being updated at the end of 1963 to incorporate the new Villiers 4T engine and the new all alloy British Hub ‘motalloy’ wheel hubs.

This late model 1964 Greeves 25DC started life as a roadster, but at some point has been converted to an off-road machine, still with the correct tank, frame, forks, engine and wheel hubs. The guards and seat have been replaced, the silencers have been cut down and the front wheel rim has been replaced with a 21" item more in keeping with its new purpose.

When photographed the bike was in running order and a look at the pictures online will show a plume of two stroke ‘blue haze’ emitting from the exhausts. There are no documents with this machine, but it could be returned to the road with the assistance of the Greeves owners’ club and the DVLA V55/5 process, or simply enjoyed in its current form as a purely off-road mount.