HERITAGE

A BRITISH MARQUE.
AN UNBROKEN STANDARD

In 1919, in a workshop in Nottingham, George Brough began building motorcycles to a standard the industry had not yet imagined. Not faster than most. Not better than most. Simply: the best. Over a century later, that conviction remains the foundation of every machine that leaves the Toulouse atelier bearing his name.

GEORGE BROUGH’S GOAL
Becoming the best motorcycle brand.

George Brough was not an inventor in the conventional sense. He did not chase patents or disrupt categories. He had a simpler, more demanding ambition: to produce, by hand, the machine he himself would want to ride.

Working from his Nottingham factory in the early 1920s, Brough sourced the finest available components and assembled them with a rigour that other manufacturers considered unnecessary. Each machine was road-tested before delivery. Each was guaranteed to achieve 100 miles per hour. In an era when most motorcycles struggled to hold together, Brough Superior held to a different standard entirely.

The name was not modesty. It was a promise.

George Brough with a Brough Superior motorcycle

A legendary brand producing some of the world's best motorcycles

No two Brough Superiors left the factory identically. Owners specified their requirements; Brough built to meet them. The result was a range of machines that shared a standard rather than a template; each one was a considered object, built for a particular person, for a particular life.

Between 1919 and 1940, fewer than 3,000 machines were completed. That scarcity was never a marketing strategy. It was simply the honest consequence of doing things properly. Production ceased in 1940. The factory turned to wartime work; George Brough turned with it. What remained were the machines themselves, held by collectors, preserved in museums, and ascending steadily in reputation and value.

When the marque was revived in Toulouse in 2013, it was not a brand exercise. A small group of French artisans chosen to continue what Brough had started: handbuilt motorcycles, made without concession, for the few who understand the difference. The standard had not changed.

After revolutionizing the luxury motorcycle industry, the brand created by George Brough has never lowered the bar of its pillars of excellency. The legacy lives on today with a driven and passionate team, propelling the brand into a new chapter of timeless design and cutting-edge technology.

After revolutionizing the luxury motorcycle industry, the brand created by George Brough has never lowered the bar of its pillars of excellency. The legacy lives on today with a driven and passionate team, propelling the brand into a new chapter of timeless design and cutting-edge technology.

Famous Motorcycles Legend

Sir Lawrence of Arabia

The history of Brough Superior is inseparable from that of Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence, a colonel in the British army, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. The famous British motorcyclist with a passion for adventure, speed and fine machines who devoted his life to Brough motorcycles. Lawrence of Arabia owned 7 of these prestigious motorcycles and left a lasting mark on the brand’s history. To this day, his legacy continues to inspire the design of each new model; handcrafted luxury machines that preserve the iconic brand of legendary motorcycles’ DNA.

Who was this famous motorcyclist?

The legend of Lawrence of Arabia and his Brough motorcycles

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in 1888 and came to world attention through his role in the Arab Revolt during the First World War, a campaign later documented in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, his account of those years. By the time that book was published, Lawrence had already retreated from public life, enlisting under assumed names in the RAF and Army Tank Corps.

It was in those quieter years that his relationship with Brough Superior deepened. Speed, he wrote, was the only modern drug he had not yet refused. George Brough and T.E. Lawrence corresponded directly. Lawrence’s assessments of each machine were exacting, as he reported faults without sentiment and praised performance without excess. Brough valued the feedback. The relationship between manufacturer and owner, in this case, was something closer to collaboration.

Lawrence’s seven machines spanned nearly a decade of ownership. Each successive Brough was faster, more refined, and more precisely suited to his requirements. The final one, George VII, had been in his possession for less than a year when the accident on the Dorset road ended everything.

His influence on the marque’s legend has never diminished.