1965 Greeves 24TFS Trail 250. Owner: Glenn Mueller, Tehachapi, California.

Few motorcyclists today are familiar with the Greeves name, but it was an interesting company, and had quite a bit of clout in this country back in the late 1950s and ?60s. Bert Greeves was an English fellow who got his start following World War II by bolting motorcycle engines into wheelchairs, and started a company called Invacar (Invalid?s Car). And to help construct these three-wheelers he added a light-alloy foundry to his factory, which was located in the appropriately named (for a motorcyclist) town of Thundersley, in Essex County northeast of London.

As an avid motorcyclist, he then got the notion of building a motorcycle, using someone else?s engine but his own chassis. At the Earls Court Show in London in late 1953, the initial Greeves line had several roadsters and a scrambler powered by two-stroke engines from the Villiers Engineering Co., Ltd. If one wonders where the Villiers name came from, the factory was on Villiers Street in Wolverhampton, and sold engines to a dozen small British motorcycle manufacturers.
1965 Greeves 24TFS Trail 250. Owner: Glenn Mueller, Tehachapi, California.

What made the Greeves stand out was the design of the frame and suspension. Instead of tubes, the frame, built in his own foundry, was essentially an aluminum-alloy I-beam that went down from the steering head and bolted on to I-beam cradles for the engine/transmission unit. A tubular steel back...