The four best Isle of Man TT bikes

Matchless-JAP

Let’s start at the beginning – all the way back 114 years ago. While the 3.5PS (2.6kW) 431cc Matchless-Jap that took the first single cylinder class win at the IOMTT may pale in comparison with the superbikes of today, it holds a special spot in the island’s history.

Automobile racing began on the island as early as 1904, but it took a formal proposal by the then-editor of Motorcycle Magazine to initiate a two-wheel class, three years later. And so the inaugural Isle of Man motorcycle TT took place on May 28^th, 1907, with single- and twin-cylinder classes for road-legal touring motorcycles with exhaust silencers, saddles, pedals and mudguards. However, motorcycles were unable to contend with the hilly terrain of the Mountain, and so they raced on the St John’s Short Course – a 15 miles 1,470 yard route starting from the village of St John's, and passing through Ballacraine, Kirk Michael, Peel before returning to St John's.

Rem Fowler won the twin-cylinder class on a Peugeot-powered Norton, while Charles R Collier took victory in the single-cylinder class aboard the British-built Matchless-JAP, achieving an average speed of 38.21mph over 4 hours, 8 minutes and 8 seconds. He was officially the first IOMTT winner. Collier went on to set several world records on similar machines, and win the last short course TT in 1910, before the mountain section was introduced in 1911.

Manx Norton

The Manx Norton is among the most iconic of classic TT machines, and is synonymous with the island for which it was named.

The model was built between 1947 and 1962 by Norton, and retained the basic, but successful architecture throughout, a single-cylinder engine available as a 350cc or 500cc, sat within a steel cradle frame. It had the power and handling required for the fast circuit, and the engineering knowledge of a manufacturer that had contested every single Isle of Man TT race from the inaugural event (and continued to do so until the 1970s).

In 1950, following the introduction of the innovative McCandless brothers Featherbed Frame, the Manx recorded a double hat-trick of podium positions at the TT, with the great Geoff Duke taking the Senior TT.

Gilera 500-4

When those first pioneering motorcycle racers set tyre tread on the TT course, little could they imagine that just half a century later, motorcycles would be lapping the island at 100mph...

The year was 1957, and motorcycles had advanced exponentially in recent years. A 100mph lap was on the cards – providing the course stayed dry – after all, Geoff Duke had come within a whisker's reach aboard his factory four-cylinder Gilera two years previously, when he recorded a 99.97mph lap. Ouch.

In this era, Italian manufacturer Gilera was very much pushing the limits of speed, and for 1957 debuted the ‘dustbin faring’, an evolution of those first seen on Grand Prix grids four years previously.

To counter the disadvantages brought by such an enclosed shape, the 500-4 featured a streamlined, side-scooped nose, the former assisting in brake cooling while the latter fed air to the four Dell’Orto carburettors.

Producing 61-76PS (45-57kW) at 10,400rpm, and piloted by fearless young Scottish rider Bob McIntyre, the 500-4 flew into the record books with a blistering 101.03mph second lap and a 101.12mph fourth. This was enough to secure the 28-year-old the Senior TT title and with it a permanent position in the IOMTT’s history books. 

Honda Fireblade

The story of Honda’s premier entry in the IOMTT is stuff of legend among racing fans. All but laughed off the island when he visited on a recce trip and announced his intention to compete, Soichiro Honda returned in 1959 with a handful of four-stroke, DOHC, twin-cylinder 125cc motorcycles and a fire in his belly. The RC142 didn’t just compete, however; four of these machines came sixth, seventh, eighth and 11^th in the Lightweight class, while Naomi Taniguchi scored Honda’s first ever world championship point and Honda took the manufacturers’ team award – an unprecedented level of success in a team’s debut year.

Now, the RC142 easily deserves a spot on this list, and so do many Hondas that succeeded it – Mike Hailwood’s 1960 250cc machine, Freddie Spencer’s 1983 NS500, the RC166 and  the more recent RC213V-S – all contributing to a huge 189 TT wins, 65 clear of their nearest rival.

However, this isn’t an ode to Honda (well, not quite), so we’ve kept it to three. And they had to be CBRs, for the machine is just the epitome of the TT.

First, the factory VTR SP-1 aboard which TT’s most successful racer Joey Dunlop took a sensational Formula One Senior win back in 2000, setting his fastest ever lap of 123.87mph and completing a hattrick of TT race wins that year. At 48 years of age and just a couple of months before his tragic death, it was the last in a string of 26 incredible TT victories.

John McGuinness needs no introduction, and likely neither does the bike aboard which he set the first 130mph lap in 2007. But we’ll give you a brief blurb, for this is a bike that has beyond earned its spot in the TT hall of fame. In the race’s centenary year, McGuinness (now the island’s second most-winningest racer with 23 victories), further advanced his legendary status and became the first man to lap at over 130mph aboard a HM Plant Honda Fireblade.

Finally, sharing the Honda spotlight, is the machine behind one of the greatest ever TT feats – the Padgetts Racing Honda Fireblade that Ian Hutchinson rode to Superbike and Senior TT victory in 2010. Aboard it, Ian Hutchinson earned his position among TT legends, becoming the first and only person to win five TT Races in a single week.