Looks like Norton wasn’t the only British motorcycle brand to get a new lease of life. Phelon & Moore is making a loud comeback after having been dormant for decades, with a retro-styled roadster called the Brighton-6 Roadster.
Modern classics seem to be all the rage in the motorcycle world of late, and Phelon & Moore seems to be sticking with the same winning formula that has fetched impressive results for the likes of Royal Enfield, Honda, and Triumph.
But before we highlight the new bike, here’s a bit of background on what the company is all about, considering few outside of the UK would have even heard of the brand name. Founded in Yorkshire's Cleckheaton in 1904, the company was named after the two people who filed an important patent, Joah Carver Phelon and Richard Moore.
And not just any other patent, it was the first real patent where the engine acted as the frame’s down tube, effectively creating one of the first real motorcycle chassis – compared to the conventional powered bicycles of the time.
Phelon & Moore’s best known range of bikes was called Panther. Big, heavy, low-revving single engines up to 600cc capacity sold in large numbers, all owing to their reliability. These motorcycles were so well-built that they were even employed in both World Wars, mainly as dispatch bikes and sidecar tugs for the British armed forces.
Come the 1960s, production ceased for the company owing to the endless onslaught of Japanese motorcycles. The company remained in a coma until 2022, when a consortium of private European and American investors brought it back to life.
As of now, the company’s design and development is handled in Italy, and manufacturing in China – all under European supervision. Very similar to the strategy of Benelli, Moto Morini, FB Mondial, and so on.
Now, let's have a closer look at the motorcycle that’s spearheading this revival.
The Brighton-6 is a beautiful modern classic powered by a 550cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin motor that produces 60 horsepower at 8,500 rpm and 41 lb.ft (55.5 Nm) of torque at 6,500 rpm. Gearing ratios are all short, in typical roadster fashion. It accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds, with a top speed of 113 mph (181 km/h).
Not bad numbers for a sub-600cc motorcycle by any stretch. But what I don’t like about it is how heavy the thing is: 548 lb (249 kg) with a full fuel tank. That’s way too heavy, considering the likes of the Kawasaki Z650RS and Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 – with bigger 650cc motors – weigh 412.3 lb and 478 lb, respectively.
The second thing I don’t like isn’t anything about the bike or its hardware. It’s the fact that Phelon & Moore has used AI-generated renders to show the bike in action. No, thanks – I’d rather not have any action images of the motorcycle than see how AI “imagines” it.
Back to the bike, suspension duties are carried by an inverted fork up front, and spring-preload adjustable shock at the rear – both offering 6.7 inches (170 mm) of travel. For braking, you get 320-mm double discs with 4-piston radial calipers at the front and a 260-mm single disc out back, kitted with Bosch 9.1 ABS throughout.
The stunning 5.3-gallon (20-liter) teardrop tank comes painted in either an obsidian black or a rich, deep red colorway with elegant diagonal pinstriping across it. I love the minimal branding and the small, neat touch of the embossed Union Jack symbol on the side.
There’s diamond-shaped stitching on the curved two-up saddle, cut fenders, a neat tail, an old-school round LED headlight, and a 7-inch TFT dash with smartphone pairing. The windshield is adjustable, you get handguards from the factory, and features like Traction Control System and a tire pressure monitoring system all come as standard.
There’s also a scrambler version of the bike with the same name in case you wanted something more rugged. The difference is a change in tire type and the seat height. That’s about it.
The road-oriented rubber on cast-aluminum wheels on the Roadster changes to Panther Adventure tires on tubeless wire-spoke wheels that offer a 70/30 street/dirt ratio on the scrambler. The 17-inch tire size, though, remains the same. Seat height increases to 32.3 inches (820 mm) on the scrambler from the roughly inch lower seat of the roadster.
As for availability, we’re looking at a mid-2026 launch timeline. We expect to see a European rollout initially, but considering how popular these kind of motorcycles are in the USA, I don’t rule out an American launch, too.
Take it with a pinch of salt, though. As for pricing, no details are provided in that department, yet. For now, what matters is that another iconic motorcycle brand has risen again.
Source: Phelon & Moore
