Archive stuff

It`s July 1982 , Three Cross become importers , so Slater Bros. will soon be stocking Cagiva and Moto Guzzi as well as Laverda on behalf of Three Cross , eventually with a change of name to Slater Laverda . A little later on , towards the end of the `eighties , a large chunk of the Collington premises became home to Motex , Robin Wenham`s Harley Davidson Dealership .

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1974 article featuring Roger Slater plus 1969 picture of Roger getting a Egli Comet muddy at the Brands Hatch Press Trial .
Avon Roadrunner round at Snetterton 1976 ( see a Velo single getting the better of a Kawa triple and Honda 4 in the 500 class at Snetterton of all places ! ) , plus local newspaper feature on Jota 1981 .

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PS...the Avon Roadrunner report mentions that some machines that fell foul of the rules , such as the Kuhn BMW ( and also the 984 cc Z1 ? ) were allowed to race seeing this was the opening round but wouldn`t qualify for points . The Trinity Motors and Slater Bros. Jotas were thought by some to contain special parts and at a later round this was disproved when a Slater Bros. Jota was examined after the race and found to be completely standard .
 
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As Jimmy Cricket used to say ( and think still does )..." there`s more"....

Shows Grant Saunder`s Jota ( his frames were usually wrapped around Japanese fours , I think this was the only Laverda powered version he made ) . Saunders was from New Zealand , arrived in England via a stay in Israel , blagged a job with Harris , told them in the interview he could weld anything , turned out he couldn`t which pissed Steve Harris off , but Lester eventually gave him some lessons...) . Also shows Allan Robinson taking on the trail bikes with his Mirage in the 1979 Circuit des Pyrenees ; and Shobba .

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PS...There was a Saunders offered for sale recently ( the advert was picked up in PS ) , in bits and not with a Laverda motor , but the seller reckoned only three now existed in the UK .
 
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and finally...
Slater advertising ; Dick Mann at Daytona 1972 on his 1971 race winning BSA Rocket 3 ; and sadly a report regarding former Laverda works rider Hans Hutten...
Massimo Laverda and Augusto Brettoni both raced under false names at Oss ; Massimo was "Islero" ( his Lamborghini car ) and Brettoni "Otis" ( lift company he worked for ) .
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750S plays gooseberry ; Laverda works rider about to receive assistance during 1953 Milano - Taranto ( Laverda singles took first fourteen places in their class , works bikes first and second ) ; Luciano Zen and Massimo nip down to the shops on a pre - production 1000 ; Piero manages to grab a ride on that pre- production 1000 .

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And finally (for now , I`m probably about quarter way through) : Augusto Brettoni on the 750S he shared with Sergio Angeloni to win the 1970 500 km race at Monza ; a 75cc works race engine on the bench ( fan cooled and with grocers scales to measure torque ) ; Slater Bros. 750 SFC being taken for a gallop around the lanes near Collington ; interior original factory ; someone`s nice RGS (anyone know it ? ) .
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rocketonarail said:
1974 article featuring Roger Slater plus 1969 picture of Roger getting a Egli Comet muddy at the Brands Hatch Press Trial .
Avon Roadrunner round at Snetterton 1976 ( see a Velo single getting the better of a Kawa triple and Honda 4 in the 500 class at Snetterton of all places ! ) , plus local newspaper feature on Jota 1981 .

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PS...the Avon Roadrunner report mentions that some machines that fell foul of the rules , such as the Kuhn BMW ( and also the 984 cc Z1 ? ) were allowed to race seeing this was the opening round but wouldn`t qualify for points . The Trinity Motors and Slater Bros. Jotas were thought by some to contain special parts and at a later round this was disproved when a Slater Bros. Jota was examined after the race and found to be completely standard .
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A few Island residents listed in the results, Eunice Evans, the wife of the Laverda racing Hugh Evans, Bill Snelling and John Musson. Several other notable riders in there too.
 
Paul Marx said:
Note that Ceccato was a neighbour, built at Montecchio Maggiore.

Paul
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Yes , nice bikes with gear drive up the side of the cylinder to the overhead cam . They eventually won the Sport Class for 75cc machines in the last 1956 M-T , when all road races in Italy were banned after a Ferrari left the road and totaled several spectators in the Mille Miglia .
Three riders lost their lives within hours of the start of the 1954 M-T .
Laverda first competed in the M-T in 1951 finishing in 4-5-6 places in the 75cc class , Nino Castellani won the class in 1952 with lots of other Laverdas behind him .
Capriolo won the class in 1954 with lots of Laverdas and the odd Ceccato following behind .
Laverda continued to do well upto the final year in 1956 , although their pushrod engines were starting to be challenged by the overhead cam Capriolos and Ducatis , especially in the 100cc class .

Pics are : 1954 M-T 250cc class winner Guido Paciocca and his Moto Guzzi getting a shove , Capriolo 75 ; Capriolo Face Cam in detail (Basically a disc with bumps in it to operate the rocker arms ) ; Moto Morini 500 Turbo styled by RG Studios (rings a bell , wonder if anyone else used them ? ) ; talking of which , here`s Marco Balbi on Laverdas RGS ( Factory F1 version , but due to international capacity regs . , only in Italy ), at Misano 1982 .

( Massimo Laverda once said in an interview that RGS actually stood for "Real Grand Sports , very American yes ?" - obviously still hankering for success in that particular market....)

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Early 1975 Slater Bros advertising ; Harris - framed triple being used by a travelling marshal on the 1980 Jumbo sidecar run ( complete with a tail unit you could pack a corpse into ) ; Ongar 1000 ; and finally , just in case you thought those puny little winglets on Moto GP and top range sports bikes were something new , Colin Lyster did it bigger and better back in 1970...

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BTW , I believe Ongar were the first to race a 3C in the UK , and there may have been some dispute between them and Collington over who first developed the Jota "tune" , if I remember correctly that is...
 
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1975 Bol d`Or at Le Mans with Georges Fougeray making a good start on the 1000 Space Frame he shared with Marco Luchinelli (as you can read it didn`t last , the Brettoni / Cereghini Space Frame also suffering problems ) .
The M & T Nessie also holed one of it`s Laverda pistons .
Pete Davies and Martin Russell bike finished 11 th , does anyone know how standard the Negus Laverda was ?

And finally , Massimo and Bosch sort out CDI problems caused by damp British climate ( it says replaced , but I thought they just turned the thing upside down and packed the connector with grease...) .

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Yet more Slater Bros. advertising ; comedian Dick Emery out for a ride on his CB750 ; it`s 1972 and a competitor decides to get off and walk during the Stars Of Tomorrow meeting at Brands Hatch ; and for all you colonials a chance to catch up with the results of the 1980 Castrol 6 Hour at Amaroo...

Dick Emery was a flying enthusiast as well as a serial bike / car purchaser ... his family joked he would buy a new car as soon as he filled up the ash tray of the old one .
I remember seeing somewhere that a certain Mr. Todd acquired a Laverda 1200 that once belonged to Mr.Emery , could this be true ?

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Would that be the Paul Lewis in sixth place who went onto Grand Prix and racing at Daytona ?
 
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It`s Space Frame time again (1975 Liege 24 hr Race at Spa ) , Roberto Gallina gets away in second place at the start (with Jacques Luc on a Godier / Genoud entered Kawasaki just visible behind him) ; Nico Cereghini on that same Space Frame ; the two race favourite Godier and Genoud Kawasakis ; and the results .
Almost a fairy tale result if it wasn`t for that Japauto getting in the way...

Godier / Genoud were the team to beat if things had gone their way , although Ducati`s Benjamin Grau and Virginio Ferrari won the two opening rounds at Barcelona and Mugello , but I think G ang G cliinched the title in the end as Ducati didn`t attend the final round because the factory was on holiday...
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BTW the report mentions that the Green /Pendlebury BMW breakdown 2 miles from the start meant a 7 mile push !!! which cost them over an hour !!!... and any chance of a good result .
The M & T Nessie retired after a crash which saw rider Clive Brown hit by a Belgian Kawasaki whilst walking alongside the track and ending up in hospital , thankfully not badly hurt .

Looking at these results makes me think that it`s a shame the Space Frame endurance racers weren`t taken / developed any further than they were ... for whatever reason...With development of a four valve head , 120 degree crank which would allow the use of a light (er) weight frame , which the Space Frame was anyway , could have kept the triple competitive and confirmed it as Laverdas signature layout , in the same way Ducati made the V twin their own .
The V6 may have been a springboard for a new range of related engines ( V twin , V four , straight triple , or at least that`s what we were told ) , and endurance racing may have been the ideal environment to test and try out these ideas , but as a competitive motorcycle...?
It was in , I believe 23 rd place when the drive shaft failed at , again I believe , eight hours into the race . It could have been repaired and sent out again but the likelyhood is that it would fail again in another eight hours , with another eight hours of the race still to go...
Add in the fact it was heavy , which made it tiring to ride in an endurance race , the shaft drive gave handling problems on the original which meant a change to twin shocks , and had poor acceleration ( in relative terms ) out of slow corners .....
If you view it as purely a test bed then maybe none of this would really matter , but if you view it as a racing motorcycle , then I reckon the Space Frame triple would have paid far greater dividends with only a fraction of the time and money spent on it than was spent on the V6 .
 
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