Book Review: Encounters - Brough Superior in Austria

The telling of history is never over: there are always discoveries to be made, even of subjects thought sufficiently covered in books and magazines.  A wonderful case in point is a new book exploring a very specific subject and period: the archive of a photographer in Vienna named Lothar Rübelt, whom you’ve never heard of.  But you’ll remember him because of the book ‘Encounters: Brough Superior in Austria. The Vintage Years 1924-31’ (JKK 2026)  It turns out Lothar was such an enthusiast of George Brough’s handiwork, he became a de facto agent and advertiser for Brough Superiors in Austria, where a considerable percentage of the factory’s output landed: nearly 200 motorcycles from a total production of around 3000 machines.

Hagen Thieme noticed a credit by Rübelt on a photo of Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz (above) on a Brough Superior, and began digging: eventually he found more photos in the Austrian National Library, and finally the archive of Lother Rübelt himself, managed by Michael Pfunder.  Hagen was granted access to this magnificent archive, which included far more than just photographs: letters, receipts, hotel bills, travel documents, etc, all of which built a story of the relationship between Rübelt and George Brough himself.

Hagen’s new book has been called ‘the ultimate Brough Superior book’, but I’d go farther and suggest it’s one of most complete pictures of motorcycling in the 1920s – the Vintage era – ever published.  Hagen reached out for a book review, and I thought it best to give some context on the man himself, and his relationship to Brough Superiors, before quoting the Preface and Introduction to his book in their entirety.  Links to buy the book are found at the bottom of this article, and the following is a brief interview with Hagen Thieme:

Paul d’Orléans (PDO): Tell me the story of your relationship to Brough Superiors?

Hagen Thieme (HT): I became a BS Club Member in 2012 having bought my first Brough in Germany (an SS80 project). For me the main reason was their beauty, they are works of art and they stimulate a feeling of passion. Later I learned that the personal encounters I had riding and restoring these bikes were more meaningful than any other. Then in 2016 I bought my dream bike, a 680 OHV from New Zealand (AAT286): both bikes I had restored to road-going condition, meaning distance riding. I rode my SS80 from Germany to UK on the road last year.

PDO: Are you a lifelong motorcyclist?

HT: I picked up biking at the age of 25 with an old 1964 BSA my first (I am now 62), after that I collected BSAs, (mostly Gold Stars). At the age of 17/18 my father forbid biking, telling me I was to weak to handle heavy machines!

PDO: How did your impression of George Brough change with your research?

HT: I knew he was having good contacts (Encounters!) with his customers, and he was also a loving family man. I found so many letters between George (in fact also his wife Constance) and Rübelt. They exchanged thoughts for holiday trips etc. Rübelt also tried to promote the bikes he bought from George. There was a very close relationship between the maker and biker. I also learned that Rübelt asked George for help finding him a 4-speed gearbox for his bike in order perform better at a rally (his second 680 OHV only had a 3-speed box as standard).

PDO: What was/were your most exciting discovery(s)?

HT: Paul, there were lots. Michaela watched me in the archive, when I pulled the glass plate negatives out of their protective envelopes. I was the first to do so since 1990! When I placed them on the illumination table she watched my face! She described me having the ‘Howard Carter Look’ (he discovered Tutankhamun) many times. Finding the cover picture previously unpublished was one of those moments. The complete negative folder with the 47 negatives in them containing the Kilometer Lancé 1929 race, and really the top: a small folder written NOTTINGHAM across the top, containing the Rübelt trip negatives from August 1931. Those are the very private George Brough pictures with Peggy and her white rabbit etc. I KNEW Rübelt had done the journey, because I had seen letters suggesting it. So I looked for the Nottingham pictures and after finding some postcards Rübelt had printed of the trip, I knew they were there.

PDO: How many of the magnificent machines shown in Austria survived?

HT: Roughly 100 or so went to Austria (mostly SS80 and 680 and a few SS100) also about 90 of the cheap 5-15 model. Less than a handful survived plus a few components such as gearboxes and engine cases.

PDO: It think of that magnificent supercharged SS100 in the photos: do you know the story of who built it, raced it, how it did? [You might recall I discovered the supercharged 1700cc Zenith ‘Super Kim’ in Argentina – real 1920s supercharged motorcycles are extraordinarily rare].

HT: The Supercharged SS100 was built by Eddy Meyer with the help of Austrian engineer Proschko 1930. It was about to be raced in France but the French did not allow Eddy into the country, him having had special fuel in his truck, which was prohibited! The bike was built from the Pendine SS100 Eddy Meyer bought in 1927. Rumors have it that this bike might have survived with an Austrian collector. It does not have any supercharger bits on it now.

PDO: How many copies of the book were printed, and what was the story of finding a publisher?

HT: I had 1000 copies made, for the 1000 extant Brough Superiors.  It’s bilingual, in German and English.  I approached publisher Jörg Krawczyk: he was recommended to me during a bike rally for pre-war machines. He already had produced “The Family of Rudge” and “Amongst Friends in the Eifel”. We took the overall layout from these books (size, printing quality etc) and my concept was brought in. I did the whole story, the chapters and most of the wording myself, and he made the book to what it is. It is selling constantly with 200 copies already gone. This is not bad for a book premiered on August 15th this year (without eBay and Amazon). I do not have an ISBN Number for it either!

I guess it is very important for you to receive the book, because the spirit and heart in it is best appreciated reading and most importantly seeing these beautiful pictures.

Preface from ‘Encounters’:

“George Brough was a gifted motorcycle designer who was also noted for his business acumen. His machines enjoyed a high reputation and were no less expensive. They weren’t produced on an industrial scale but custom-made with utmost attention to detail. They were admired for their high standard of workmanship and finish. George Brough set no store by mass production but was convinced that a first-class product at a correspondingly high price would attract a loyal clientele and he was proved right. Between 1919 and 1940 at a small plant in Nottingham a little over 3,000 motorcycles rolled off the assembly line and then production ceased as a consequence of the Second World War.

Word soon spread that the Brough Superior machines were among the best and fastest models on the market. If you owned one of them, you were in a position to overtake anything on the road. Sporting venues and participation in races paved the way for more clients. A win on a Sunday helped sales on the Monday. The ensuing publicity was followed up by opportunities at fairs and reports in the specialist press. In his quest for a wider market beyond England, George Brough was to rely also on Austria. Why Austria? It was there that he could count on two brothers, Eddy and Kent Meyer and their experience in this field. They were to maintain the high profile of Brough Superior motorcycles over many years and at the same time introduce the business owner, Dezsö Kellner, to a circle of keen and affluent purchasers. It became the task of one Lothar Rübelt, as a photo-journalist, to show these motorcycles and their riders in the best possible light.

Lothar Rübelt, and initially his brother Ekkehard, were the driving force behind the photographic documentation of this sporting and commercial development. It wasn’t just a fleeting interest in Brough Superior. While the brothers’ documentary work remained unknown for a long time, it is only thanks to Rübelt’s archive that we can now observe in such detail the impact Brough Superior machines had in Austria. All the photos and documents on display in this book are the result of the Authors’ dedication to the archive over several years. This in turn was only possible because Lothar Rübelt kept a record of almost everything, over decades. Scores of boxes and files contained diaries, correspondence, negatives in 35mm and glass plate formats, even doctors’ bills, visiting cards, travel documents and hotel bills. We have attempted to sort out this wealth of material and arrange it all with the aim of revealing un-published illustrations of the machines as well as information about George Brough, his family and friends. All this provides the modern reader with an almost intimate insight into the bond of friendship between Lothar Rübelt and George Brough, which lasted till the 1960s. In perusing these documents of a long-lost era, we hope that readers will derive as much pleasure as we experienced in our research and quest.

Between 1919 and 1940 slightly more than 3,000 Brough Superior motorcycles were produced. This period has been thoroughly documented, so that any undiscovered material is very rare. When some time ago I came across a photo in a book about the photographer Lothar Rübelt, it seemed familiar enough to me. It was in fact a picture of Professor Konrad Lorenz, the ethologist from Vienna, who was later to be awarded the Nobel Prize, on the 680 O.H.V. Brough Superior which he had bought as a young man in 1927. As already mentioned, I had seen the photograph before – what aroused my attention was the footnote beneath the image, stating that it was Lothar Rübelt who had initially fostered Lorenz’s interest in this make of motorcycle. Later in the same book, readers can spot Rübelt’s business logo (‘PHOT·RÜBELT’) which shows him at work standing on the luggage rack
of his own Brough Superior.

“Wiener Bilder” (“Images from Vienna”) is the title of a book by Matthias Marschik and Michaela Pfundner and based on photos which are to be found in the pictorial archive of the Austrian National Library. It was Michaela Pfundner, I discovered, who in conversation with Lothar Rübelt in his advanced years learned about the connection with Konrad Lorenz. My supposition that Rübelt, being an enthusiastic photographer of motorsports generally, might have developed a keen interest in these motorcycles, turned out to be correct. From my research in the pictorial archive of the Austrian National Library I found that Lothar Rübelt was not the only loyal Brough Superior client. His brother and friends likewise developed strong personal as well as business links with Brough, which in Lothar Rübelt’s case lasted until well after the Second World War. It is thanks to Lothar Rübelt’s archi-
vist, Michaela Pfundner, that I could undertake a comprehensive study of this photo- graphic treasure trove. The originals of the photos and documents displayed in this volume can be traced to this extensive collection. On Rübelt’s death, Michaela Pfundner was granted permission to inspect and sort out this wealth of material.

As a result of a painstaking search of the archive we came across hundreds of large and small glass plate negatives and prints featuring not only the Brough Superior machines. As well as the motorcycles themselves, we thought about the people sitting on and standing next to these machines. Our purpose in this book is to set out on an absorbing voyage into the past of the roaring twenties, at a time when the motorcycles were new and their owners ever so proud. Nowadays the English Brough Superior Club – founded in 1958 – acts as the custodian of these first-class machines, which are such a rarity on our roads. Of the approximately 3,000 manufactured, about a third still exist, spread throughout the world in museums and collections, with the odd one still to be spotted on the streets.”

To order a copy of ‘Encounters’:

For the USA / UK: contact Mike Smith at the Brough Superior Club here.

If you’re in Europe, the book can be ordered from Hagen Thieme directly here.