1954 Liner Portly

Big thanks to Colin Gibson for getting in touch about a couple of photos of an early fifties Liner that I posted a short while back. Colin has identified the bike as a 'Portly' model from 1954. Liner was the brand name of the Kitagawa Motor Company who were taken over by Yamaha in 1959. A quick search on Kitagawa reveals that they also made a clone of the Sunbeam S8; worth a look if that sort of thing interests you.

Colin has kindly fowarded a copy of the Liner Portly brochure for publishing. If the Portly takes its design cues from the Triumph Terrier the frontispiece of the flyer is an unashamed rip off of Norton advertising material! Whilst Norton may well have laid a decent claim to being the 'World's Best Road Holder' Advertising Standards would have had something to say about the Liner Portly had they been around in Japan at the time. It seems that Portly was a reasonably apt name as the machine had only six horses to push around its 120kg. None-the-less a fascinating machine and piece of history and it would be great to see one in the flesh. Incredible how this was the level of machinery Japan was producing in 1954 but just four years later the Honda Cub appeared. 

The Unapproachable Liner Portly!

Liner Portly tech details.

And one of the photos previously published.

Early fifties Liner motorcycle from Japan

Here are a couple of very unusual photos. They came to me with a small number of other pictures taken from the album of a well travelled family of motorcycle enthusiasts. It must have been rather out of the ordinary for a foreigner to be out on the roads on a motorcycle in Japan in the fifties.

I've struggled to find out anything on the bike other than the brand on the tank, it is a 'Liner'. Whilst stylistically it takes cues from a Triumph Terrier or Tiger Cub (look at that petrol tank badge) the machine overall is very much not a copy and the motor is quite individual. If anyone out there knows more about Liner motorcycles please do fill us in...

Showing some leg in a Japanese village
with a Liner!

Japanese 'Liner' brand motorcycle from the
fifties.