Keith Duckworth in Crowson Quasar (2000)

Keith Duckworth tries Mark Crowson's QuickaQuasar for size at Silverstone in 2000. The number 31 on the bike is from Mark's visit to the annual Peraves Ecomobile training and World Cup competition at the Brno Grand Prix circuit, a couple of months earlier. At the time, Keith, the co-founder of Cosworth and designer of the all-conquering DFV Formula 1 engine, owned a Voyager. This photo, taken by fellow Voyager owner Graham Robb, appears in a new biography about Keith Duckworth, First Principles, by Norman Burr, published by Veloce in May 2015.
There are several photos of Voyagers, including the one by PNB of Keith in his own machine, which can be seen elsewhere on this site here: http://bikeweb.com/node/2934,
plus some words about Keith and his other scooters and motorcycles penned by PNB.
Keith's Voyager, 03, is now owned by Ian Kew and there are several more photos of it in the Voyager 03 folder.
Photo: Graham Robb

Keith Duckworth in Crowson Quasar (2000)

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review?

What did you think of the book? Worth buying? It was interesting getting to know Keith as a Voyager owner, having previously known him as the irascible boss of Cosworth, who Didn't Approve (usually with good reason) of rude mechanicals messing with his engines - there was a sticker on the spark box that read "it is better to be uninformed than ill informed"

He wasn't very impressed with the Reliant engine although he thought the Voyager layout was sensible and pointed out a very helpful update to the cooling system.

Does the book mention the Voyagers or did they just use the Quasar pic for entertainment?

There's a pic of Keith, on my old website, at one of the Voyager meets at Silverstone, looking sceptical about the Mk11 Voyager barrell.. http://www.oesten-creasey.eu/hightech/pictures/keith.jpg

More about 'First Principles', the Duckworth Biography

As I said in the description above: "There are several photos of Voyagers, including the one by PNB of Keith in his own".

As for the whole book, so far I have only had a chance to skim through a copy that was on display at its Castle Combe launch last weekend (23/5/15) – copies for sale were delayed but were due in the following week. Obviously the half chapter that I wrote myself was outstanding when it left my computer, but I didn't have a chance to check how much of it actually got into print.
The photos of Voyagers include a group shot with Graham Fryer's FF at the front, another of Ian Kew picking up 03 chez Duckworth and one close-up of Keith talking to some old reprobate by the name of Royce Creasey......
There's a close-up of the Hossack front end which I persuaded Keith to have fitted to his Triumph 900, and a shot of Keith on his Helix and me on a Mk1 Yamaha Majesty.
My biggest disappointment photo-wise is that the author chose not to use the unique shot I supplied of the original 1985 Ecomobile outside the National Motorcycle Museum alongside the museum's own Quasar which was subsequently destroyed in the disastrous fire. It can of course be seen on bikeweb, here: http://bikeweb.com/node/1806
However, there are a great many other good photos of all kinds and I know that the book was 4 years in the writing and that it covers the whole of KD's life and involvement in all manner of vehicles on land, sea and air, from the DFV F1 engine to the coincidentally named Quasar microlight.
More here: www.veloce.co.uk
Search for 'First Principles' by Norman Burr, or simply, 'Duckworth'.

Thanks for that

I'll check it out, may have to save up me pension and buy a copy