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The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever
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At this stage I still wasn't too suspicious about the bike really until I met a certain well informed Spanish motorcycle dealer. He bought a couple of my 4 speed Bultaco's from me and came over and collected them. He was carefully looking over this bike and I thought …he's showing a lot of interest in that bike and I thought to myself that he was obviously after it for a reason.
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
At this point, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to buy it, he removed one of the side panels and within 20 seconds he discovered the original frame number. He told me that the position where my frame number was stamped was only used on prototypes. I had owned the bikes a fair number of years and I had never spotted this before. I had always assumed that a matching number stamped on the tube just below the seat was the original, but I guess this was added at a later stage, maybe for MOT purposes as it can be seen more easily.
This photo shows the matching number
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
The place where my frame number is located was used for prototypes only. To give you an idea about my restoration that I had completed. I had never stripped the paint off the frame or anything like that. My restoration was simply to get the bike running and mechanically solid.
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
I didn’t want to shot blast it. I can't be sure that this was the original paint on the frame, but I left it on there anyway. So this visit from the dealer got me thinking about the bike and then I started to really examined the pictures of Miller in the Spanish trials bike book. The Don Morley book.
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
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The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
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Under tank view. 2 HT coils and room for 2 condensers (Holes to the right of the orange HT.)
If you look carefully you can see an additional piece of metal plate (between the 2 coils) has been added to reinforce the frame web.
If you look carefully you can see an additional piece of metal plate (between the 2 coils) has been added to reinforce the frame web.
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
I could see from these pictures that there was more than just a passing similarity. It was the welds that helped to identify the bike. It was when I changed the photo from colour to black and white that it really heightened one or two of the welds and identified it by these unique features as being the same bike.
The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
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The actual first Sammy Miller Bultaco that changed the sport forever www.retrotrials.com
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