There are still a few corners of the English countryside where time seems to slow right down. One of them, tucked into the lanes of West Sussex, is Verralls, England's longest established dealer in veteran, vintage and classic motorcycles.
If you're ever riding through Sussex on a Sunday morning, it's worth throttling back and stopping at the local coffee house next door first. The Victoria sponge and black coffee are excellent, and you'll want the fuel before wandering into the showroom, because you won't want to rush what comes next.
Step inside and you're met with rows of vintage ironwork, weathered fuel tanks, polished nickel and that unmistakable smell of old Castrol R and leather that only comes from decades of proper use. In an age of plastic fairings and digital dashboards, dealers like Verralls keep something important alive. It's a proper treasure trove for anyone who cares about classic motorcycles, and exactly the kind of place that reminds you why this hobby exists in the first place.
Verralls covers the full spread of eras, veteran, vintage, post vintage and post war machines. Right now, one bike on the floor deserves a much closer look.
For Sale: 1913 500cc Rudge Multi
Verralls currently has a beautiful 1913 500cc Rudge Multi for sale, and it's the kind of machine that stops people in their tracks. The leather seat has been kept in excellent condition, the variable ratio belt drive is intact and working as it should, and the patina across the whole bike is the sort you simply cannot fake or rush. Every mark on it tells you this motorcycle has been ridden, maintained and respected for well over a century.
The Rudge Multi wasn't just another early motorcycle. Rudge Whitworth built their first motorcycle in Coventry in 1910, and by 1912 they had introduced the Multi gear system, a genuinely clever variable transmission that let riders adjust the gear ratio smoothly on the move rather than jumping between fixed steps like most of their rivals. It was one of the most important engineering innovations of the veteran motorcycle era, and it is a large part of why the Rudge Multi still holds such a strong reputation among collectors of pre war British motorcycles today. Rudge also built a serious name for itself at the Isle of Man TT and at Brooklands, and that racing pedigree is baked into every Multi that left the Coventry factory.
Why Verralls Is the Right Place to Buy
Buying a hundred year old motorcycle isn't something you want to do without the right guidance, and Verralls has built its reputation on exactly that. The team has stayed deliberately small and personal. Ian has run the business since 2004, and he now works alongside Gordon Button, known for his time at Morgan, so every visitor gets the same level of knowledge, patience and proper old fashioned service the shop was built on. It's the kind of expertise that matters when you're buying a piece of motoring history rather than a modern machine off a showroom floor.
The 1913 Rudge Multi is priced at £15,000, which is a fair figure for a motorcycle carrying this much genuine pre war history. Original, well kept examples of early Rudge motorcycles do not come up often, and one in this condition is unlikely to sit on the showroom floor for long. If you're serious about veteran and vintage motorcycles, or you simply want to see a piece of Coventry engineering history in the flesh, this is well worth the drive to West Sussex.
To view the listing, click here