Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 103 i Old Bike Australasia

Savic Motorcycles will display their high-performance electric sports bike at the “Classics at Hart – 120 Years of Motorcycle Manufacture” exhibit at Harts Mill, Port Adelaide, on the 8th and 9th of October, the last two days of this year’s Festival of Motorcycling SA. The Savic C-Series bike is a Design Award winner and reputed to have potential to reach 100km/h in 3.5 seconds. Visitors will be welcome to interact with the bike, which is the first Australian-designed and manufactured production motorcycle since the nineteen fifties, when companies such as Tilbrook Motorcycles operated. Savic Motorcycles is also the first Australian company to design and manufacture an electric motorcycle. The annual Heritage Transport Expo will run concurrently with the Harts Mill weekend, (8th and 9th of October). On both days, minibuses…

In the late ‘sixties, Honda had plenty to be happy about. Within their range of small capacity twins, the CB160, CB72 and CB77 were all volume sellers, much to the delight of Honda dealers everywhere, particularly in the US. The CB450, less so, given that the US buying public generally hated the styling, and several other things about it. Like the 250 and 305, the 450 had an oddly spaced set of ratios inside the four-speed gearbox. First was too low, second too high, which meant a struggle for acceleration up through the gears, and a neck-straining lurch when changing back to first, like at traffic lights. For 1968, Honda decided to start with a relatively clean sheet of paper. The 450 was rejigged with an extra gear effectively slotted…

Originally a bicycle manufacturer in Soligen, Germany, the motorcycle story began when Jakob Oswald Hoffman moved the business to Lintorf, near Dusseldorf in 1949. He started building a range of lightweight motorcycles with two-stroke Sachs and Ilo engines from 89cc to 247cc, and also acquired the first licence to build Vespa scooters in Germany. These were later marketed as the Hoffmann Königin and around 60,000 were built in total. At its zenith, the Hoffmann company employed some 950 workers. Like many other German factories, Hoffmann struggled to gain a foothold in the home market, and the export market wasn’t much interested either. Nevertheless, the little machines paid the bills. Just. ‚ Hoffmann reckoned he needed to expand the range – and take it out of the pure transport segment into…

The regular Shannons gathering pre-auction draws a crowd of motoring enthusiasts of all genres, the latest being on 30th July 2022. Representing the motorcycles, I took my 1954 MV Augusta 175 CSS and was joined by some members of the Ducati Owners Club of Queensland. Inside there were some classic motorcycles for auction. Impressive was an ex-Des Butler 1951 Manx Norton. Des reportedly sold the last of his Norton collection in 2016 and was quoted as saying “I used to buy the first Norton off the production line each year. It would come by ship from the factory in England, then by train to Wickham, and finally to Hazel and Moore in Newcastle where I would collect it.” He fitted his 1951 Manx with Chevy valves and said, “it went…

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The RNA Showground venue this year included the main arena and various surrounding buildings to exhibit all varieties of automobiles. The motorcycle and scooter section was again relatively small. The Vespa Club had a very professional display with nine machines including an outfit on display. Modern bikes included two of the latest incarnations of the Brough, a 2022 Ducati Diavel 1260S Black and Steel, a Triumph Thunderbird, and a Lehman Monarch Honda Goldwing trike complete with matching trailer. The HMCCQ had two historic bikes on display. I rode my 1955 AJS Model 20 and Ian Rennie rode his 1929 Indian 4 outfit. Within the Vintage Club of Qld display there was also a Brough SS80, Brough SS100 and a very original 1948 Norton International. Finalists for the category were Robert…

In the late ‘forties and ‘fifties the Italian manufacturers were competing for a share of the motorcycle market with some, including Ducati, basing sales on the success of winning races such as the Motogiro D’Italia and Milano-Taranto race. The Motogiro D’Italia was for bikes up to 175cc and consisted of numerous stages held over a number of days on public roads. The Milano-Taranto race was for machines up to 500cc. The Giro started in 1914 with the peak years being the mid ‘fifties until a serious accident in the 1957 Mille Miglia (a race for cars) where 10 spectators along with the driver and navigator were killed, ended racing on public roads in Italy. Ducatis weren’t overly successful in these events and in 1954 Ducati contracted Fabio Taglioni to design a…

The year is 1998. Yamaha launches the first edition of the YZF-R1. The world’s press is gob smacked, and the company can’t keep up with demand. Waiting lists blow out to six months for salivating customers – and Yamaha’s rivals have been caught with their pants down. The 1998 Yamaha YZF-R1 is the granddaddy of the modern Superbike. Until its release (and for some time after it), Superbikes were classified as 750cc four-cylinder machines and 1000cc twins. World Superbike would keep these rules until the end of 2002, but in reality the world had moved on in 1998. The R1 saw to that. The R1 also saw the death of the ’90s litre-class hyperbike (an over-exaggerated term common at the time for anything bigger than a Superbike), which arguably began…

The model had been officially announced in the pre-Christmas 1920 issue of Motocicismo magazine and had attracted considerable interest. Moto Guzzi officially kicked off on 15th March, 1921. From the outset, the company’s product was designed to be robust, reliable, technically advanced, and safe. Straightforward the design may have been, but every facet was thoroughly thought out, every feature there for a purpose. And although the Normale owed much of its thinking to the prototype G.P. (Guzzi-Parodi) designed by Carlo Guzzi and Giorgio Parodi in 1919, the customer version was, in reality, a completely different product. Thus began a reputation for innovation and design flair that thereafter characterised the products of the company on the shores of Lake Como. Economic necessity dictated that the production Normale would differ in many…

After a week of less than perfect weather in WA we had two good days for the HCMC Rd 3. There were several standout performances throughout the day but none more so than that of 14-year-old Jayden Martin, who surprised not only himself but the entire paddock with his outstanding performance on the 'Turn 1 Motorsport 1989 Honda NSR 125GP'. Besides riding in the 150 Production Juniors he had been invited by David Manson (Turn 1 Motorsports) to ride his 1989 Honda NSR 125GP bike. The Historic Club sought an exemption from MA and MWA to allow him to compete in the class which was granted. Martin had not seen the bike prior to Saturday morning. Practice on Saturday was uneventful, and he was looking forward to race day Sunday.…

A few weeks before the rally, which had not been held since 2019, many of the roads in the Hawkesbury district in Sydney’s north west were under water. The legacy of this was a severely reduced choice for the route, with the ferries crossing the Hawkesbury River still out of action and virtually all the roads littered with potholes and washaways. Neverthe-less, the show went on, thanks to the organising committee headed by Garry Appleyard and Kathleen Toovey. After a month of rain and very cold weather leading up to the weekend, the sun came out for a brilliantly sunny, if chilly rally. The truncated course still took the field of around 100 starters through the meandering roads and historic towns, beginning and finishing at the Pitt Town Sports Club,…

It’s amazing the difference a day makes. Saturday was wet and miserable but Sunday saw the Don Nicol Memorial Sidecar Circus held in magnificent weather. While I do believe there would have been more entrants if it wasn’t for Saturday’s rain, 18 outfits lined up in front of the HMCCQ Pine Rivers Clubhouse ready to rumble. There were many sidecar genres ranging from low-slung cruiser types, classic older combinations, modern Ural offerings and serious off-road adventure machines. A home-made long bed sidecar on a Royal Enfield was also noted. Over the past couple of years, the event has become a hound fest but this year we only had one canine passenger with Harry Howath on his old school BSA-powered Steib outfit. Admirably, both rode all the way down from Toowoomba. Sidecar…

Riders from as far away as Broken Hill (NSW), Goolwa and Adelaide (SA), Maryborough and Portland (VIC) made it up to Mildura for the SHMC’s annual running of their Meander Rally, over 180kms of mostly Victorian roads on the Saturday, and 120kms of mostly NSW roads for Sunday. The ride passed through multiple grape blocks, citrus acreage, beside irrigation channels and along many straight back roads and twisty bitumen minor roads. Fortunately the weather was good and roads were dry. On Saturday the 78 riders were briefed for the 0900 start, and the Corner Marshals left well ahead of the Meander riders to outline the route. Average ride speed was close to a GPS-managed 70km/h, easy enough for even the oldest bikes to maintain. There were no breakdowns and no…

In the annals of Western Australia’s rich motor sport history, few names loom larger than Aubrey George ‘Aub’ Melrose, who was born on 12th November 1900. In fact, long before he became synonymous with the motor trade and motor sport, young Aubrey was an accomplished sportsman, competing in athletics, boxing and gymnastics. Academically, he was no slouch either, and joined the Young Australia League, which had been formed in Perth in 1905, as a teenager. When the Panama Canal opened in August 1914, Aubrey was part of a YAL delegation to the site to celebrate the waterway linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Breezing through an apprenticeship saw Aubrey emerge as a qualified mechanic, with his speciality being the humble but effective Austin 7. He was a foundation member of…

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The day I decided to look into that dark corner of the garage I had no idea what would happen. I knew there was an old motorbike there, forgotten for decades by the whole family and buried under a pile of junk. I knew that my father had used it in the early ‘seventies, I had seen photographs of him riding it with my mother. The bike had been given to him by his sister-in-law Enza’s father. When my father inherited it, it was already an ‘old bike’. He painted it twice with a brush, once orange and then black. He tried to modernize it to his liking, and rightly so, since it served him to win my mother’s heart. Once that was achieved the bike ended up buried in…

SENT TO US RECENTLY is this wonderful photo of ‘Miss Honda’ – Pam Taylor, taken in 1971. Pam was employed at Bennett Honda in Gardeners Road Mascot, where many of the trade’s notables also worked, including Ric Andrews, Col Evans, Ian McLeod, and the Keed brothers Ron and Alan. The company was NSW distributor for Honda motorcycles and power products, under the capable hand of George Pyne. At the time, Honda sales were booming and Pam was selected to become the face of the brand at dealer functions, shows and other activities. She is seen here with the 1938 350cc Manx Norton owned by speedway pioneer Arthur Payne and ridden with great verve in the new sport of Historic Racing by the legendary Eric Debenham. Calling all Kiwi Vintagents The…

While wet weather threatened to disrupt racing at this year’s Big Chill meeting at Stanthorpe, it was not enough to dampen the enthusiasm of competitors who came from as far as North Queensland and Victoria. Hosted by QEMSC, the annual Big Chill is a highlight event of classic motorcycle racing in Queensland. The track at Carnell Raceway is tight and fast, and the atmosphere in the bushland pits is welcoming and friendly. Competitor numbers were slightly down because of the rain, but when the skies cleared at lunchtime on day one, racing resumed as normal. It was good to see some young faces among the lineup of seasoned riders, thanks largely to the recent introduction of a ‘Motards, Pre Modern, SSP 300’ class where marques like KTM and Aprilia are…

After a bit of a COVID break it was again time to dust off the little Italian bikes and join the 2022 Pre-Giro ride. The 2022 tour was split into Brisbane and Sunny Coast groups which came together at Rocksberg Park Heritage Reserve in the upper reaches of the Caboolture River before continuing as one group to Kilcoy for lunch. We then split back into two groups to return back to our start point. Trevor Fryer (long-term partner of the organising team for the full Moto Giro) led the Sunny Coast group while Keith Rickart (who normally only runs the pre-Giro) led the Brisbane group. Keith will this year saddle-up with Trevor to run the full Giro in place of Peter Morrow. The Brisbane group start point was the Dayboro…