Archive stuff

a14rgs said:
I used to see it (Quasar - not Phasar?) parked at the top of Corn Street when I worked in Bristol 2004/05 ish.
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It could well be a Phasar rather than a Quasar as the Quasars had a roof and used a reliant Robin engine, whereas the Phasars used motorbike engines, like the one in the photo, and some had hub-centred steering.
 
Alan said:
Enjoyed all the write ups in Motorcycle Sport back in the day from the FF guys.
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Yes , I used to read it through the `eghties ...... It was a strange sort of magazine , almost like a throw back to the 1950`s , eventually it changed and became Motorcycle Sport and Leisure ( or Motorcycle Port and Lemon as someone once described it ) ..... a guy called Richard Stevens ( " The Spy " ) took over editorship from Cyril Ayton and brought it a bit more up to date ( with colour photos even ) , but it kind of lost it`s appeal to me from then on .

Another thing with early Motorcycle Sport was an article would be interrupted with " contd. on page 18 " ........ you would turn to page 18 and of course there would be no sign of it ..... you would eventually find it tucked away on page 23 .......if you ever found it at all ........this happened quite regularly ......

Once it got it`s teeth into something it would pursue it to the death , as with FF`s , ..... also there was a contributor called TRT ( all contributors were known by their initials only ) , who produced endless six page articles on Harley Davidsons , listing model changes , colour schemes for each model and so on .
These epic HD articles seemed to continue for years ...... , and then was ex Vincent employee Ted Davis ( recently deceased ) and One Tracks column which never stopped reminding us readers just what fine machines those Stevenage V-twins were / are ........

I believe Richard Stevens was killed in a road accident , back in the `nineties , whilst riding a HD , but the magazine , ( or it`s glossy successor ) , lives on ........

Reminds me ...... Cyril Ayton and journalist Bruce Preston undertook a trip over to France / Belgium ....... Cyril on a SF750 , and Bruce on a Commando ..... the Commando expired during the trip ( it was lent to Bruce by the factory I believe ) , and had to be towed back part of the way by the SF ....... 2023-01-07 (3).png ( Ayton on the SF pictured )
 
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I got a reasonable history with my 120 and tried contacting previous owners from the info. I hit it lucky with the second owner who'd owned it the best part of its life before me. I got a lovely email from him along with some photos of it from when he first acquired it. One of the stories he told me was of sitting at a set of traffic lights in Kingston and the boys in blue pulling up along side. The cop opened his window and asked him to give it the berries so his mate could hear it when the lights changed. He said he sheepishly let rip and the cops gave him a toot and turned off after he had obliged them.
 
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Stuart Graham`s 1967 factory water cooled , V4 , 12 speed , disc valve , 125 cc , two stroke Grand Prix Suzuki , developed and built in 3 months , to challenge the V4 Yamahas ....... it made 41 bhp at 16,000 rpm with a top speed of 143 mph .

Only raced once , at the Japanese GP where Graham finished second to Yamaha`s Bill Ivy ..... Suzuki withdrew from GP racing four months later .
 
rocketonarail said:
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Avon Bikes advert March 1980 ..... the Green Mirage is *1200*1637* which I purchased ....... the Mirage Executive was finished in dark metallic red ( not the standard 1200 red ) , and was fitted with pannier cases .
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Abbey Garage ( advert to left) was on my walk home from school, Triumph main agent,they lent our scouts a Executive Bonneville for a “ Buy British” carnival float- with me sitting on it with my brothers crash helmet on!
 
Andy J said:
I got stung, the price for the 350 Motosplat ‘Monty’ I bought a few months later was £1700! 😢
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Maybe not ...... I think Laverda sort of "re - launched " the 350 / 500 twins around 1980 as the Roadster and Sport , the Sport version simply being the Roadster with Jota adjustable bars plus a headlamp ( bikini ) fairing , and maybe rearsets .
So when Dennis says 350 Sport Montjuic Style it`s probably just the ordinary 350 Sport he`s referring to .

Your Motoplast 350 sounds a step above that , so maybe you weren`t shortchanged so much after all ..... although with Dennis you never know ....! .....
 
rocketonarail said:
Maybe not ...... I think Laverda sort of "re - launched " the 350 / 500 twins around 1980 as the Roadster and Sport , the Sport version simply being the Roadster with Jota adjustable bars plus a headlamp ( bikini ) fairing , and maybe rearsets .
So when Dennis says 350 Sport Montjuic Style it`s probably just the ordinary 350 Sport he`s referring to .

Your Motoplast 350 sounds a step above that , so maybe you weren`t shortchanged so much after all ..... although with Dennis you never know ....! .....
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The revised 500 models, as they had stopped building the 350, came out around 1982/3 when the new noise emissions etc took effect and killed off the Montjuic.
I have a fairly good inkling that the bike I bought had been sat in his showroom for awhile and he probably put the price up when other prices went up.
I’ve certainly never seen or heard of another bike like the one I bought, so unless anyone else can show otherwise, I think my bike was the only one.
Typically, a month or so after I bought the 350 he put on sale a rebuilt 500 Monty for the same money. However, if I had bought that instead I probably wouldn’t have bought off Richard Slater, in 1982, the first of two ex 1980 IOM TT Formula 500 race bikes I have owned.
 
Suzuki withdrew from GP racing four months later .

and Frank Sheene bought the bike to get his nipper Barry a decent ride, he made good use of it
CLEM
 
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3CL road test (1977)

The road test mentions that early top speed runs were met with enough vibration to fracture the exhaust collector , and a reluctance to better a timed one way of 115 mph ... the bike was returned to Birmingham Superbike Centre for checks but no improvement ..... a call to Slaters revealed that the A/12 cams fitted were to French / Swiss market spec ; ( either the machine was intended for that market then diverted , or maybe they were just fitted in error ) ..... the bike went back to Collington , and instead of just swopping the cams , Slaters changed the complete engine ( presumably now with A/11`s ) ..... and the results shown above were now obtained .
 
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