I have recently been given a great stack of "Classic Motor Cycle" and "Classic Bike" magazines from the 80s, and apart from feeling like crying when I see ads for a "restored Vincent Black Shadow, 1952, £14,500" - from a dealer! have noticed two things: firstly that any machines featured with a TT connection, whether a road-going bike called a "TT replica" or a restoration of anyhting that raced the Mountain or Clypse circuits, had much more kudos than a machine lacking the connection. Can anyone think that any of today's machines will have any of that aura in magazines of the 2020s?
Secondly, I was taken by two articles about the TT Lap of Honour in "The Classic Motor Cycle" for July and August of 1989.
Philip Tooth (editor) wrote "Allan Robinson, the Classic Parade organiser, fought an uphill battle to make it such a success. The ...ACU allowed just 45 minutes before ordering out the 'Roads Open' car. Fortunately, for some strange reason it had trouble starting, giving an extra 20 minutes......to complete the circuit" I wonder who the driver of the car could have been?!
The next month has a bigger article, with photos, and starts "The ACU's scarcely disguised hostility to any vintage or classic presence at the TT was amply deonstrated by their starting the TT Lap of Honour at the ridiculous time of 8.15 in the evening. So it was too by the attitude of the official who in my hearing warned..Allan Robinson....'You lot have got 45 minutes to get round - after that we open the roads'. Despite the late hour and dubious light, a huge and enthusiastic crowd thronged the Grandstand and the pits area eager to catch sight and sound of a wonderful array of solo and sidecar machinery. .....late a photographer said to me 'I've covered a few events - up to and including visits by the Queen, and I don't think I have ever seen a crowd as enthusiastic as today'"

Plus ca change, plus ca le meme chose.................