The Story Behind 78 Motor Co.
Why 78? Well that's the year I arrived kicking and screaming and very soon dreaming about pedals, wheels and motorcycles. By age 9 I’d lost my front tooth after a downhill experiment with my skateboard went wrong and at just 10 my twin sister and I fixed up our first motorcycle, a 1970's Suzuki RM80 that our Mum had bought us for just £70. It had no flywheel cover and after two years of riding around the fields in County Antrim, I realised the oil had never reached the engine!
Moving to Paris at the age of 19 I fell in love with Parisian café culture and started to appreciate life on two wheels riding a Suzuki GS500 through the cities busy avenues. It was in Paris around 1998 when I got my first glimpse of the the early 'new wave' scene. (or maybe it just never left?). I Moved to Spain at 21 and adopted red Citroen 2CV without a roof (and a kitchen chair as a seat) and later travelled to Italy numerous times before returning home to buy my 1st Ducati Monster and Vespa after fully embracing the two wheel transport mode adopted in cities like Paris, Rome and Bologna.
In the following years I suffered a few setbacks, accidents and illnesses but always stayed positive and in the summer of 2011 I decided to take on the trip of a lifetime for Leukaemia research riding a small Chinese 125cc motorcycle from Brighton, UK to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. After arranging visas and all the gear I needed I set my compass East and left everything I knew behind...
Some well known brands had provided me with gloves and a new helmet but soon I found himself by the roadside somewhere in rural Ukraine nursing a sore head after the heavy helmet had rubbed the skin off my forehead. Frustrated, in pain and unable to find a replacement I struggled on for the next 3 weeks riding up to 12 hours a day reaching Ulaanbaatar, the most remote capital city on the planet. The visor would no longer close, the liner was badly worn and my expensive, leather motorcycle gloves had stretched and went hard making simple tasks a complete chore to the point I would take them off and ride bare handed.
After my experiences crossing the Gobi, I discovered something that stayed with me: the things we wear while riding should work as beautifully as the machines we ride. So my birth year became the brand and I joined these numbers together in fondness for those days riding around with my twin sister on that old Suzuki scrambler that never had any oil!
Ride safe!
Anthony
Get in touch with us at sayhello@78motorco.com
