Introduction

Iceni CAM Magazine

This is the home of the Iceni CAM Magazine—a free e-magazine about Cyclemotors, Autocycles, Mopeds … and more.  It was launched on 15 April 2007 and the most recent ten issues can be downloaded here.  All the articles from all the previous magazines are on this website.  For non-computerised folks, printed copies are available at £1.50 per edition; we can accommodate mail order too at £3.02 for single edition or £12.20 for a year’s subscription.

So what’s it about?

It’s an e-magazine all about cyclemotors, autocycles and mopeds that carries road test & feature articles, rally reports, free adverts and other assorted information.  Although we are an independent production, we have strong ties to the EACC and also to the New Zealand Cyclaid Register.

We are based in East Anglia, but are by no means limited to that area.  Much that appears in the magazine is of universal appeal.  We welcome contributions, wherever they are from, and are also happy to help to publicise any events for cyclemotors, autocycles and mopeds.

When’s it published?

We publish four times a year at the beginning of January, April, July, and October.  Iceni CAM is purely an enthusiast production, and all produced on a tiny budget.  The free downloadable version will be posted on this website on the same day as the printed version goes on sale.

All the issues of CAM Magazine that we’ve produced have been very well received.  Thank you all for your comments; they are much appreciated.  Several of you have also made donations, which has helped enormously in keeping Iceni CAM going.

What’s in it?

The April 2025 edition is available now on our Downloads Page.

Main feature: 9+1 does not = 10

The RM10 pictures were more of the images that we found in our search through the Nottingham Archives on Tuesday 11 June 2024, where two DD/RN-6-28-1-451(1) & (2) were negatives needing printing and scanning, while the other two were photographic prints DD/RN-6-13-4-(38) & (42) only needing a scan.

The RM10 pictures from Nottinghamshire Inspire Archives.

There was clearly only going to be one way to present this RM10 article, which (for obvious reasons) would involve doubling it up with an RM9+1, but finding one of these machines isn’t that easy, because they were the least common and most expensive model of the Runabout family, and there weren’t so many made.

If you’re going to produce a presentation on the RM9+1, then it’d be most desirable to cover its rarest version in the Calypso Coffee colour scheme, but it had only been sold for three months of the 34 months the 9+1 was listed.  Ideally we were looking for an example of the rarest scheme of the rarest Runabout model, and we’d never even seen one—so what are the chances?

Our Calypso Coffee RM9+1 was assembled from parts of two dismantled and incomplete 9+1s from Dave Merrin, the second bike being a later Royal Carmine Red machine.

Assembly of the 9+1 started in mid-November 2024 following completion of the Norman Nippy for our second feature in the same magazine.  The 9+1 photo-shoot was completed on 30 December 2024, a difficult time of the year for photographing due to the gloomy conditions, rain, clouds, and low light angles, so it’s a matter of waiting for a better day and timing the pictures to the ideal window.  When the right moment arrives though, you can get sunshine, blue skies, and the photos work out.

Finding the archive pictures of the RM10 Autocrat was an absolute bombshell moment, which obviously no one had appreciated the importance of, or we’d all have know about this machine before.  Another case of historically important pictures sitting in archive files for 60 years, unrecognised and unknown.   It just shows how few people perform objective research, and the historical treasures that can sometimes reward these efforts.   We were legally bound to keep these pictures under wraps until we secured copyright approval later in the year, then even longer again because we didn’t want any ‘leaks’ to spoil the impact of the article.

The research trip took two long days and an overnight stay in Nottingham, but failed to turn up anything for the actual reason we first went to the Archives, which was trying to find information on ‘The Ghost’ (Raleigh Eire Super), though it did turn up the indirectly related single negative of the incredible Raleigh RM3 prototype.  The main material we found was incidental discoveries of the R16 Poweride (two pictures), the Wisp Mk 2 ‘mock-up’ (one picture), the Bauer (one picture), and our four RM10 pictures.

A total of nine pictures, scans of three related contracts and a few related notes was the total haul, but provided previously undiscovered material for four fantastic articles.  All-up cost of this research trip was nearly £500, and represented a huge amount of work in collating the information and presenting the articles, which we feel was well worth the effort, and added greatly to the pool of knowledge in our subject of interest.

There are certainly more general pictures and material that could be gleaned from the Inspire Archives, which could support further articles, but we’ve definitely skimmed the most important files, and though we might take another research trip sometime, it’s very time consuming and quite costly to do.

The motivating factor is whether a further specific reason to do so might arise…

The article was sponsored by Raleigh enthusiast and EACC member Les Gobbett of Louth, Lincolnshire.

First Support feature: Return of the ‘Springer’

The story of our Norman Nippy is: first registered 21 October 1959, then somewhere along the way had its original number transferred off and replaced by an age-related registration.  By the time it was acquired in 2002, it was showing six previous owners, and came completely dismantled, so at this time it was of only nominal value—yes, cheap!

Cheap however comes with its own problems, very typically lots of worn out and missing parts. ‘Yes, it’s all there’, except that it never is … also bikes are usually dismantled for a reason, like something’s gone wrong.  The engine was due for a major rebuild, a rebore, and a shatter ed clutch, but also the rear hub wasn’t well.  Examination revealed the bike must have been ridden with loose rear wheel bearings, and kept being ridden until the bearings wore through the bearing cup … but it still continued to be ridden until the remains of the bearings wore through the hub, which fell into two pieces—and snapped the axle!  Ridden to destruction!  This was one of the most dreadful examples of wilful neglect that we’ve ever seen, and required a replacement hub.

The paintwork, chroming, wheels, front suspension, and engine rebuilds were all completed within a couple of years, but then the project stalled for 22 years, until work resumed in October 2024, and was completed to a fully working machine in just six weeks.  The photo shoot was taken on 18 November, then research commenced to develop the text file.  It wasn’t until this stage that we discovered that Norman hadn’t really seemed to even promote it as a new Mk2 type-2 model, and that no factory pictures were apparently released, even though some 8,000 examples appear to have been sold within just a single season!

It was obviously a popular model.

You just don’t know about these sort of things until you start researching the facts and history, and especially considering it was a common model.  I’ve personally had four of these machines, and never knew!

Of further interest when you delve into the research, was the timeline of the frame: introduced in 1955 as the rigid-frame (German) Achilles Capri moped with a Sachs engine, further sold as the AMI Capri, and also sold as the (British) Norman Nippy Mk1.  Achilles converted the frame to a plunger rear suspension in 1956 and it was further marketed in the Netherlands as the Germaan Capri, and as the Norman Nippy ‘Springer’ (Mk 2 type 1 with Sachs engine).  When Achilles went bankrupt in 1957, Norman acquired the tooling and rights to continue production at Ashford in Kent throughout 1959 as the Mk 2 type 2 ‘Springer’, but fitted with the Villiers 3K engine to replace the Sachs.  After Norman production concluded, the Capri frame kit tooling was sold on to Israel Cycling Manufacture via Raleigh (South Africa) and returned to production yet again in Israel in 1960 as the ICM Tilon moped, and continued into 1979 … so in various iterations, the model achieved 24 years of production!

And, as it turned out, the ‘Springer’ actually returned twice: Achilles, Norman, and ICM.

Is this a moped record?

Thanks for sponsorship, which came from EACC Regalia Officer, Garth Jeffrey.

Second Support feature: The Farmer

The unexpected discovery of this remarkable negative among the Nottingham Archives was something we felt deserved investigation and exposure.

It wasn’t clear quite what we had found here when holding the negative up to the strip lights in the Nottinghamshire Inspire Archives reading room.  It was one of those double-take moments where you recognise the Sturmey–Archer engine, and assume it’s an RM2, then realise it’s something else, but can’t make out what because it’s a tiny film negative!

So note down the file number for printing and scanning—then it’s not until a couple of weeks later and the bill is paid and you receive the scan that you quite realise what you’ve found and see the Bauer badge on the tank!

What on Earth is this?  Then the research and analysis starts to try and figure it out, but we can’t share the image until we’ve formally cleared copyright.

Nobody figured out the clue as to what this article might be about.  Why would they?  It was so obscure.  Farmer is the English translation of the German word Bauer.

This represented the last of our series of pictures from the Nottingham Archives, the total cost of which added up to £279 for research, negative printing, photography, scanning, and copyright approval of three Motobécane–Raleigh contracts and nine pictures: one RM3, two R16 Poweride, one Wisp Mk2, four RM10, one Bauer.  These direct costs were covered by IceniCAM, and show what sponsorship and donations we receive go towards.

Some of the pictures from Nottinghamshire Inspire Archives.

Thanks to Sandy Ross, EACC, Hertfordshire for sponsorship of the article.

What’s Next?

The next magazine is scheduled for publication at the beginning of July 2025.

Next Main Feature: Was this the most iconic Japanese Sports moped?  We’re pretty sure it was!  We started this article in June 2011, so why has it taken 14 years to complete this?  Got to admit, we simply have no good reason this time …

Next First Support: Another ancient history lesson starting in 1854 as two brothers bought a third of a steel-hammer works Suhl, Germany, but it would take a long 100 years before the company made its first moped …

Next Second Support:Come in No.3!  Our crusade to find a Ducati Cucciolo that demonstrates a representative performance continues.  Could this be the one?  We might even dig up some old road tests for comparison, which shows how hopeful we are this time …

What else?

Well, there’s this Website … we’ve put a lot of useful information here, and we’re alwas adding to it.  We have a directory of useful people to know.  Information on local events and, after each run, we put photos of the event on this website.  There’s also a market place where you can buy and sell mopeds, autocycles, cyclemotors and other related items

As each edition of the magazine is published, we add to our collection of articles.  From Edition 3 of the magazine, we introduced another evolution.  Previously, features in the articles section had reflected what appeared in the magazine, but you may now discover a bit of extra content has crept into some items as they’ve transferred to the website—you might call it ‘The Directors Cut’.  The problem with printed magazines is editing everything to fit page sizes and space, and there can sometimes be bits you’d like to include, but they have to be left out to fit the available space.  The web articles don’t need to be constrained by the same limitations so, although the text will remain the same, the ‘Directors Cut’ graphic in the header indicates the item carries extra pictures and bits that didn’t make it to the magazine.

We also have an Information Service—if you want to know more about your moped, we can help.

What we do

Iceni CAM Magazine is committed to celebrating all that’s good about the Cyclemotor, Moped and Autocycle scene; researching toward the advancement of the pool of knowledge about cyclemotors, autocycles, old mopeds, and other oddities; and the publication of original material.  We are a declared non-profit making production, though we still need to fund everything somehow to keep the show on the road.

The magazine is free on line, and the nominal price of supplying hard copies to non-computerised folks is pitched only to cover printing and postage.  All advertising is free since we believe that the few people left out there providing parts & service for these obsolete machines do so as a hobby and an interest.  This involves far more effort than reward, and they should be appreciated for the assistance they provide.  Our Information Service is there to help anyone needing manuals to help with restoration of a machine.  We make a small charge for this but, again, we have set our prices so the just cover postage and material costs.  However, we are trying to make this free too!  We are setting up an on-line library where you can download manuals at no charge.

Overheads involve operation of the website, and particularly the generation of features.  Articles like Last Flight of the Eagle can cost as little as £20 to complete, while others have cost up to £150 to generate, eg: Top Cat on the Leopard Bobby.  With these overheads, you may be wondering how we get the money to keep it all going.  So do we!  But, somehow, it works, helped by a number of generous people who have sponsored articles or made donations to keep the show on the road.

How long does it take to research, produce, and get these feature articles to press?  Well, up to two years of preparatory research in some cases, where little is known about the machine or its makers, and where nothing has been published before.  Then, collating all the information and interviews, drafting and re-drafting the text, travel and photoshoots typically account for up to 40 to 50 hours to deliver the package to editing.

There are many examples where these articles have become the definitive reference material for previously unpublished machines like:

Ambassador Moped,

Dunkley Whippet & Popular,

Elswick Hopper Lynx,

Leopard Bobby,

Mercury Mercette & Hermes,

Ostler Mini-Auto,

Raleigh Ireland Super,

Stella Minibike,

…and many others.

We’re committed to continuing to produce these articles, because we believe it needs to be done, and we’ve got a proven track record for achieving it.  Nobody else has done it in 50 odd years, so if we don’t do it—who will?

To whet your appetite for what’s ahead, here’s an updated list of machines with developing articles for future features:

Ariel Pixie;

Beretta–Mosquito;

Capriolo 75 Turismo Veloce;

Cyc-Auto (Wallington Butt) & Cyc-Auto (Villiers);

Dot ViVi;

Dunkley S65 & Whippet Super Sports;

Elswick–Hopper VAP MIRA test prototype;

Gilera RS50;

Hercules Her-cu-motor;

Honda Gyro Canopy, Model A, CD50, & SS50;

James Comet 1F;

MV Agusta Liberty;

Norman Nippy Mark 3;

Powell Joybike;

Rabeneick Binetta;

Simson SR2E;

Solifer Speed;

Sun Autocycle & Motorette;

Vincent Firefly;

Yamaha FS1-E.

The working list changes all the time as articles are completed and published, and further new machines become added—so as you see, there’s certainly no shortage of material.

Readers have probably noticed a number of the articles collecting sponsorship credits, and we’re very grateful for the donations people have made toward IceniCAM, which certainly assures we’re going forward into another year.  We don’t need a lot of money since IceniCAM is a declared non-profit making organisation, and operates on a shoestring (and we’d like to keep it that way)—run by enthusiasts, for enthusiasts.

It’s easy to sponsor an article by either picking a machine from the forward list, and we’ll attach your credit to it, or simply making a donation.  There is no fixed amount, it’s entirely up to you, and however large or small, we’re grateful for any contribution to keep the show on the road.

If a vehicle you’re interested in seeing an article about isn’t in the list, then let us know and we’ll see about trying to add it in the programme, but we do need access to examples—perhaps you have a machine you’d like to offer for a feature?

See the Contact Page for how to: Sponsor an article–Enter a free advert–Submit an article yourself–Write a letter to us–Propose a machine for feature–Offer your machine for test feature …