Peter Williams inspects Jan's Norton FF
Peter Williams, one of the greatest rider-engineers ever to grace a motorcycle, has a look at Jan Nelder's Norton Commando-engined, Tony Foale-steered FF at the 2017 Ardingly Classic Motorcycle show. For those who don't know, Peter won the 1973 F750TT at a record-breaking 107mph average on a monocoque Norton twin that he designed himself. Tragically, he was very badly injured in a crash at Oulton Park the following year riding a completely different machine that he didn't like when the tank-seat unit came adrift. The crash ended his riding career but he has continued to work as a designer and engineer ever since for the likes of Cosworth, Lotus and the born-again new Norton company. It was as a direct result of taking Peter for a ride in the original Peraves Ecomobile in October 1992 that I was introduced to Keith Duckworth, the co-founder of Cosworth, and got to know him, which led to Keith buying one of the original 5 pre-production Voyagers, as described in the section I contributed to 'First Principles', the biography of Keith Duckworth, by Norman Burr. And, to complete the circle, the fairing on Jan's unusual Norton is based on those fitted to the Voyagers! PNB
Photo: © Paul Blezard 29/10/2017
First Principles
With reference to which (The chapter on the Voyagers in the above book) I'd just like to say - No Voyager has yet arrived at a corner with "no brakes". And that's not how Kieth described the incident to me, in the presence of other Voyager owners. As I pointed out to Veloce publishing after I read the book. Nothing more to say.
Voyager brakes
Strange then that two other Voyager owners described similar lack-of-brake scenarios to me, as that recounted to me by Keith. As I pointed out to Veloce Publishing. Nothing more to say.