79 replies to this topic

[bobness]

Austrian Michael Schmidt on a Jim Beam Suzuki was down to be #33. I wonder if he and Alex swapped?

[elmwood]

250 rotax engined bikes, Armstrong, Waddon, Cobas etc.......... Reverse clyinder yams + 1....

Jurgen van de goorberg on the 500 MuZ.... that thing screamed.........

Mike.........

[greg1953]

I remember Barry Sheene coming to Croft for the 1969 British Championship round with the ex works Suzuki 125 twin, I watched from the chicane leading onto the start / finish and hearing it go through the gears was amazing. I have a vague memory of the ACU insisting it couldn't use all of it's gears ( was it 7 speed ) and Barry had to blank one off or was this a daft rumour ? either way it was the most exotic bike I'd ever seen, the modern bikes just don't seem to have that magic aura.
Greg

[stuavant]

So who is #49? it was supposed to be Alex George but he rode #33 @ Silverstone in 1981.

We have Michele Fruchi and Dale Singleton I think but by then Alex was retired injured I think

[Russell Burrows]

I remember Barry Sheene coming to Croft for the 1969 British Championship round with the ex works Suzuki 125 twin, I watched from the chicane leading onto the start / finish and hearing it go through the gears was amazing. I have a vague memory of the ACU insisting it couldn't use all of it's gears ( was it 7 speed ) and Barry had to blank one off or was this a daft rumour ? either way it was the most exotic bike I'd ever seen, the modern bikes just don't seem to have that magic aura.
Greg

I too remember something about the gears thing. HTF would the scrutineer know what was in there. He surely didn't have to split the cases at each meeting to show them?

[rd500]

i always thought that suzuki was originally a 10 speed?

[exclubracer]

i always thought that suzuki was originally a 10 speed?

I also believed it was originally a 10 speed as raced by Stuart Graham, IIRC Franco had a 6 speed cluster made by Rod Quaife.

[philippe7]

Although I'm not an expert, I would tend to go along with the 7 speed theory - at least in the last versions of the 125 Suzuki twin. It was often mentioned in the litterature of the time that those left in circulation after the factory withdrawal needed to have one of the gears blocked off in order to comply with the new rules that came out in, was it 1970 ? This led to the notorious case of the disqualification of Otello Buscherini who had won the 1974 Jugoslavia GP on the Malanca ( essentially a re-branded and slightly modified Suzuki ) , because at some point in the race the metal piece that locked the extra gear in question had broken and he was found to have seven usable gears at the end of the race .

[GD66]

I also believed it was originally a 10 speed as raced by Stuart Graham, IIRC Franco had a 6 speed cluster made by Rod Quaife.

9-speed in 1965 and 1966

10-speed in 1967.

[greg1953]

Anyone know where Sheenes Suzuki is now??
Greg

[picblanc]

Anyone know where Sheenes Suzuki is now??
Greg

I think Barry got it back & restored it for his collection, not sure if its still @ his house? I recall an article in Classic racer about him restoring it.

[jaybee49]

Anyone know where Sheenes Suzuki is now??
Greg

Here is a pic I took of Barry ‘parading’ the renovated 125 Sheene Suzuki at Doington Park in the early 80‘s. I always thought it was only ever a 10 speed version and was not aware other cluster sizes were made for it - so thanks for that…

I am sure the bike is part of his collection still in his house in Australia.

Though there was something in the mc press at the time that Barry or Franco had taken out a loan to purchase it from Stuart for about £5K? Would that be right?

Edited by jaybee49, 19 September 2011 - 07:12.

[Rennmax]

Dieter Braun paid 35 000 DMK for his Suzuki RT66 to Hans Georg Anscheidt in '68, for comparision, a Yamaha TD 1C was available for roughly 7000 DMK then. Dieter's bike had a steel frame, whereas Barry Sheene's RT67 allegedly had a duralumin frame

[ralt12]

Some great sounding bikes.
My votes?
Moto Guzzi V8
MV triple
Honda 250 6-cylinder
Laverda V-6

and, I have to admit, the XR750 does have a purposeful grunt...

[philippe7]

I am sure the bike is part of his collection still in his house in Australia.

Though there was something in the mc press at the time that Barry or Franco had taken out a loan to purchase it from Stuart for about £5K? Would that be right?

I certainly saw it in his Gold Coast house back in 1997



That day Barry told me that the Suzuki factory had offered him to buy it back for whatever sum he asked, but that he had had a hard time tracing the machine again ( in 1972 he had sold it to "an italian team", I think it was Italjet who raced it under their name for a young Pier Paolo Bianchi in the mid-70's ) and that when he eventually found it he bought it back for much more than he had sold it for, and that he didn't intend to part from it again....

[rd500]

then theres this classic



no wonder the "GOAT" backed out

[Russell Burrows]

Renn, a wonderful circuit, perhaps the most fun of them all. Not enough run-offs, too many trees for the present day.

Once you start looking at youtube, you tend to get drawn in. How do you like this one? I was involved in some of the testing of the original bike.

How wonderful is this. Gotta belong with the rest.

[terryshep]

How wonderful is this. Gotta belong with the rest.

Really makes the hair stand on end, Russ. How I wish I'd had the means to record it at an empty Monza during testing! The sound as it passed those concrete pit boxes at full chat was out of this world. You could hear it all the way round, of course.

[sterling49]

Sorry to repeat myself .....Honda 6 cyl. 250/350 , I still hear them ! Todays sounds like s... !

Agree, can still hear Hailwood at Brands ...in 1967 or 7.........................

[Russell Burrows]

Really makes the hair stand on end, Russ. How I wish I'd had the means to record it at an empty Monza during testing! The sound as it passed those concrete pit boxes at full chat was out of this world. You could hear it all the way round, of course.

I bet, Terry. It must have had some serious grunt too?

[mba21]

I bet, Terry. It must have had some serious grunt too?

This has to be the best sounding 125 ever.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

[Russell Burrows]

I know we've touched on this before but I can't find the relevant posts. So: does anyone recall if the MV six of the late sixties was radically different from the bike produced in the late fifties, at least in the donk department?

[GD66]

Do you mean the 350/6 from 1970/71, Russell ? A much smaller motor, from end-on pretty much the size of the last of the 350/4s. Two steering heads mounted in tandem, and as usual for an MV, an eccentric singarm axle mount. Six carbs fed from a weir-type floatbowl supply system.
My understanding is it was tested by Bergamonti and co but never raced.
Now part of the Elli collection, and normally paraded by ex-works wrench Lucio Castelli : I gather it may have been given to him when all the MV stuff was divided up in the Iannucci raid. It smokes a bit these days, but still sounds wicked when on the tap...
The 1958 500/6, as Terry can no doubt attest, was a big lump of a unit by comparison.

Edit : Drat, should have watched the youtube clip first : anyway that's the one...

Edited by GD66, 06 October 2011 - 09:10.

[philippe7]

Bergamonti, somewhere on the Adriatic coast, early 71....( I think )

Picture courtesy of the french "pit-lane.biz" forum

[GD66]

Cesenatico or Rimini, Philippe... but looking awfully like a race !!

Another urban myth busted...

[Russell Burrows]

Do you mean the 350/6 from 1970/71, Russell ? A much smaller motor, from end-on pretty much the size of the last of the 350/4s. Two steering heads mounted in tandem, and as usual for an MV, an eccentric singarm axle mount. Six carbs fed from a weir-type floatbowl supply system.
My understanding is it was tested by Bergamonti and co but never raced.
Now part of the Elli collection, and normally paraded by ex-works wrench Lucio Castelli : I gather it may have been given to him when all the MV stuff was divided up in the Iannucci raid. It smokes a bit these days, but still sounds wicked when on the tap...
The 1958 500/6, as Terry can no doubt attest, was a big lump of a unit by comparison.

Edit : Drat, should have watched the youtube clip first : anyway that's the one...

As usual a good comprehensive response, Glenn. Thanks.

[larryd]

Bergamonti, somewhere on the Adriatic coast, early 71....( I think )

Picture courtesy of the french "pit-lane.biz" forum

Riccione in 1971 - practice. Both Bergamonti and Agostini tried the "6", but couldn't get it sorted out. They raced the 350 "threes".

I've seen a pic of the race start, and Angelo is on the 350 "3" - on lap 6 he set the fastest lap, but on the next round he aquaplaned with fatal consequences.

This accident put an end to the early-season Mototemporada Romagnola, which had run from 1959 to 1971 at Cesenatico, Milano Marittima (Cervia), Rimini and Riccione.

[GD66]

As usual a good comprehensive response, Glenn. Thanks.

Did quite a bit of research into the bike's background when we knocked up a vid of Ago's visit to Pukekohe in 1999. The Elli team were out with a 500/3, a 500/4 from around 1974, a late-model 350/4 and the 350/6..... 17 cylinders side-by-side down the back straight....

[philippe7]

Two more pictures found on the very good "pit-lane.biz" forum which I joined yesterday, they have a section called "oldies but goldies" which is a sort of Motorcycle Racing Nostalgia forum in French, with such luminaries as former journo Jacques Bussillet or old days riders like Eric Offenstadt or Hubert Rigal taking part

Said to be from a book by Alberto Colombo and Roberto Patrignani





According to them, there was only ever one single unit of this 350 built, in 1969, and said to have been given personnally by Count Agusta to mechanic Lucio Castelli, who still owns it to this day.

What was puzzling me is how this machine could have been seen ridden by Bergamonti in 1971, since I was convinced that from 1971 onwards, the 350 and 500's had been limited to 4 cylinders. So I searched a bit, and was surprised to read the following in the "racing memory" website timeline , regarding the enforcement of the FIM's "multiple four-stroke killers" rules...

1969 : the 50cc are limited to 1 cylinder and 6 speed
1970 : the 125 and 250's are limited to 2 cylinders, and all solo categories to a maximum of 6 speed
1971 : the FIM decides not to enforce the restrictions which had been considered for the bigger classes

Can anyone confirm the latter ? This would explain why the 350-6 MV was legal to race in 1971, but still, I had always taken it for granted that there was a maximum of 4 cylinders rule - otherwise, why would Honda have gone to extreme technical difficulties to create a "fake V 8 " with the oval pistons NR 500 if they could just as easily have built a proper high-revving V 8 ?

[GD66]

The 1969 build date is the clue there I think Philippe, they must have been caught pants-down when the rule change loomed but I suspect forged ahead anyway just to prove they could build it and get it finished.... maybe just for Italian championship races rather than the GPs. The weir-type carb floatbowl system can be clearly seen in the pics from that book, as can the drilled strengthening plate joining the twin steering heads... I have the book's English version, with Ago's signature in the front, as a memento of a great weekend.

Edited by GD66, 07 October 2011 - 08:33.