© Richard Skelton, 2014

Published by Richard Skelton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.

The rights of Richard Skelton to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-9930020-6-9

Book layout and cover design by Clare Brayshaw

INTRODUCTION

This series of books is, in some respects, a love letter to motorcycling. It has certainly been written from the heart. I started riding powered two-wheelers in the mid 1970s, on a fabulous little 50cc ‘popsicle purple’ Yamaha FS1-E, and straight away I felt that riding set me free in a way that was not only instantly joyful, but also meaningful and somehow magically transcendental.

I was also aware I was stepping into a great, flowing river of history, and I was deeply glad of it. I quickly became as interested in motorcycling’s past as its present; hungry to find out about the fascinating machines and singular people that made motorcycling what it was, and had been. And I began to explore what it was that set motorcyclists apart from the majority and made biking so uniquely enjoyable. As an avid rider and reader, I became a student of ‘the sport’.

Those thoughts and feelings have endured for nearly 40 years now and while I still find motorcycling in all its aspects as boundlessly fascinating as did my teenage self, it is the period in which I plunged in and joined the flow, the time when I was at my most impressionable and when my mind was at its most absorbent, that still holds the greatest interest for me today. The 1970s. The time when I fell in love with motorcycling.

The first book is a general history, briefly told, of motorcycling in Britain from its beginnings at the very end of the 19th century up to 1969 (interwoven to an extent with two-wheeled goings on in the USA and elsewhere). It charts motorcycling’s pioneering years, skips through two world wars, tells of social acceptability in the 1920s, hard times in the 1930s and growing ostracisation and decline in the 1950s and 1960s. It attempts to make sense of the motorcycling world order, and of motorcycling’s place in society and everyday life, and sets the scene for the larger, more detailed volumes which follow.

Taken together, Books Two, Three and Four form a comprehensive, in-depth history of the bikes and motorcycling trends and events in the 1970s. They tell the story of the arrival of the superbike, the continuing and inexorable rise of the Japanese motorcycle industry and, partly from an insider’s point of view, the wasteful, lingering death of its British equivalent. They tell of the thrilling and extraordinary sporting machines from Italy and of the bulletproof BMW twins designed in Bavaria. They tell of motorcycling culture and of two-wheeled life and lives.

In the 1970s, motorcycling became a leisure activity in a new and exciting way, there were more motorcyclists than ever before, or since, and dozens of new and ever more fabulous and technologically advanced motorcycles crammed the showrooms every year. It was the time of Jarno Saarinen and Giacomo Agostini and of Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene. The time of Bike magazine, of Motorcycle Sport and Cycle in the USA, of Mark Williams, Dave Minton and LJK Setright in his pomp.

I argue that although the protagonists were largely unaware of it at the time, the 1970s as a whole can now be seen to have been a golden era in the history of the movement, a pivotal decade which represents a high point in the history of motorcycling that is never likely to be matched.

The final book in the series, entitled ‘The Magic of Motorcycling’, takes a sideways look at the 1970s classic motorcycle scene in the second decade of the 21st century and explores what it is that makes motorcycling so special to so many people yet an anathema to a great many more.

And a series of appendices list nostalgic, amusing and sometimes poignant reminders of the life and culture of the 1970s, reminding us of the global goings-on and domestic backdrop underlying the motorcycling scene and, of course, all lesser matters.

Books Two to Five all feature a short chapter containing potted biographies of the interviewees quoted in the text.

Altogether, this gigantic and far reaching but, I hope, always coherent tome, is an attempt to make sense of motorcycling and celebrate its apogee in the 1970s. I have tried to set down a great many facts in a logical yet entertaining way and, as well as aiming to be informative, I have strived to connect with fellow enthusiasts and devotees at an emotional level, and also to convey to non-motorcycling readers something of what is wonderful and fascinating about powered two-wheelers.

CHAPTER ONE

GOLD WING

Honda had achieved great racing success in the 1960s and in 1969 it had produced the world’s first four cylinder superbike, but it was nonetheless still regarded as a company that was more conservative than innovative. But in 1975 Honda surprised the motorcycling world by releasing the GL1000 Gold Wing, a 1000cc motorcycle of gigantic proportions which was, Honda argued, the first bike of its kind ever designed.

A super smooth and sophisticated touring machine, the Gold Wing was a hefty flat four, shaft drive motorcycle aimed at the BMW type rider. Though not as fast, nimble or fine handling as a BMW R90S, it would cover intercontinental mileages reliably and in comfort. But this was a time before the motorcycle market was subdivided into segments by marketing men and bikes were not categorised in most motorcyclists’ minds. Motorcycles were judged in the round and all many potential buyers could see was that Honda had bungled by releasing a comically large and massively overweight motorcycle as their new, top of the range superbike. It seemed a gross misjudgement. A joke.

At first sales were embarrassingly slow and Honda did indeed seem to have made a mistake, but incredibly, over the next four decades, the bike became hugely profitable and a global phenomenon, and as it did so it became even and ever more gargantuan, growing to 1,832cc and evolving into a sort of luxury super-cruiser equipped with a massive front fairing and similarly huge integral storage boxes at the rear.

Furthermore, Gold Wings would come to be accessorised with hi-tech hi-fi music systems, with footboards, with extra badges and swathes of chrome, with plush armchair seats fitted with cup holders in their armrests and with colour matched banking luggage trailers that would be towed in their wake. Whether wittingly or no, whether by accident or design, in 1975 Honda sowed the seeds for the invention of a whole new category of touring motorcycle and created a machine that has become an institution and an indispensable part of the company’s model range, especially in the USA.

But in Britain, back in 1975, Gerald Davison was not impressed.

Gerald Davison: I had to admit the Kawasaki Z1 was a terrific bike, really phenomenal, and all I wanted was something better. At that time in our development, and it’s probably the case all the time, we needed a pinnacle to the range. We needed something that people might talk about today as having a halo effect. I think that’s something that’s needed for a real enthusiast market of any sort, and because of the Kawasaki we’d lost top notch position.

I think the code name for the Gold Wing was the King and I was told we were going to get something very, very different, not like the Kawasaki at all and I thought Wow! I had been trying to get R&D to think about something like a V4 range, something that would take us in a different direction but that was very demanding technology at the time and probably not possible until we moved to water cooling. But that is what I ideally wanted. What we got instead was the Gold Wing. I was horrified.

Honda R&D was very preoccupied with the fast developing car range and I think the obvious truth is the Gold Wing was probably created more to meet some imagined demand in America than it was for the UK and Europe so I was very disappointed because we were waiting for a greyhound. That was the point, we needed a top of the range bike that would suddenly storm all the standing quarter figures and so on.

The Gold Wing didn’t give us that, or the halo effect we were looking for, but it did go on to carve out a little market all to itself before it developed into the leviathan thing that came from the United States. That was something else. The first Gold Wings were a little bit more lithe. I remember taking one to the Island for the TT and wearing away both sides of the stand. There were no feet left on it by the time I’d finished it was grounding so easily, so it was a fun bike to ride but it was a kind of a sidecar bike wasn’t it really? We needed a greyhound and we didn’t get that.

The original Honda Gold Wing was powered by a slow revving water cooled 999cc flat four engine with cylinders that were integral with the crankcase in a car-type arrangement, and cams, driven by toothed belts, which were straight from the Honda Civic car and needed adjustment only every 24,000 miles. The engine, which had to be removed from frame for serious engine work to be carried out and would have to be stripped right down in order to be rebored, was designed for good servicing accessibility. A section of frame unbolted which allowed the engine to be slid out but home tinkering was clearly not anticipated. The idea was the bike would be maintenance free for the owner.

The Gold Wing was bigger than any Japanese bike had ever been and the arguably the closest to a car any bike had ever been in technological terms. It even had a pull choke like a car. The Gold Wing had a large radiator and a cooling fan and water circulation was controlled thermostatically, it had shaft drive with an integral shock absorbing device to remove snatch, disc brakes front and rear and a wide, comfortable seat.

Its large tank was in fact a dummy which contained the electrics, the radiator overflow tank, a kickstart lever for emergency use and a handy storage box. The actual fuel tank was sited below the seat to lower the centre of gravity and a mechanical fuel pump was therefore needed to get the petrol uphill to the carburettors. There was no wasted space and the bike had a squat, dense, completely solid appearance, redolent of strength and concentrated power, although it was not un-handsome in its original unfaired form.

On the move, testers wrote of electric motor smoothness and a cushioned ride and found no vibration worth mentioning. There were some concerns its clutch, which was the same as that of the CB750, might not be entirely up to the job. The big Honda provoked a bemused reaction among British bikers. There were jokes about its portliness and its weight and, perhaps inevitably, it was known as the ‘Lead Wing’.

Dave Minton tested the Honda Gold Wing in Motorcyclist Illustrated in late 1975 and decided it was a fabulous bike. It could be criticised for its weight but actually, he argued, it boasted a better power to weight ratio than a Black Shadow. And the fact it lacked the excitement of a sportster was not the bike’s fault, according to Minton. That was not what it was built for. It was a heavyweight, long distance express. Reliable, durable, strong and capable of reaching 120 mph fully loaded and of delivering high speed cruising for hour after hour, day after day.

Dave Minton: It was ground-breaking. A luxury tourer that was highly refined and also a very sophisticated motorcycle. I was mildly critical because while I was completely won over by the performance I thought it could have been delivered from a simpler engine and when the six cylinder version came along later well, you can’t even criticise it because it’s so obviously a caricature of a motorcycle rather than a plain and simple tourer.

The original Gold Wing was big and heavy but it was a sweet motorcycle to ride. Very forgiving and once you got it rolling you barely ever needed to change gear. My wife Eileen and I went on holiday on one right down to the south of France to Menton, with a group of other motorcyclists, a complete miscellany of machines. There were about 20 of us, sports bikes of various sorts and even an Aussie on a Silk and the Gold Wing was up with the best of them, two-up through France for two days averaging 90mph. Provided you treated it with respect, which meant keeping all the wires tight on every corner, it wasn’t too bad at all, they would start grounding long before they started waltzing.

Later, Minton was given a Gold Wing for long-term appraisal and, in keeping with his road testing philosophy, he decided to carry out some routine maintenance at his Herefordshire home.

Dave Minton: I would always try to discover, through riding a motorcycle, whether it had achieved what I believed to be its designer’s aims. If it was a utility I would treat it as a utility motorcycle and I wouldn’t expect it to perform like a sports bike. If it was a tourer, I’d try to tour on it. That was the fundamental search that I would carry out. Ownership qualities always ranked very high with me and I can remember baffling Honda when I had one of the first Gold Wings. They’d lent it to me for about four months and the rear tyre wore which would happen very quickly if you rode them fast, and I asked them if they would supply me with a replacement for me to fit myself and they couldn’t understand why I wanted to do that. Well, with a motorcycle of that weight I thought, what do you do if you have a puncture? This was a chance to find out.

Somewhat reluctantly they supplied me with a tyre which I fitted at home by myself and it wasn’t too bad at all really! At that time, of course, tyres were tubed and the biggest problem was getting the old tyre to unstick from the rim. I put it in a vice and kept squeezing until it popped it off and after that using sufficiently long, flat tyre levers I got the tyre off and altogether it wasn’t too difficult.

Minton concluded his original test with the following statement: ‘To summarise I would say that the Gold Wing is what could well turn out to be an historic motorcycle in that it might well represent the peak of non-sporting, conventional motorcycle, mass production achievement. Not, as the factory claims, a breakthrough in technology or sophistication, or anything like that at all, but perhaps the last of the old school.’

Despite Minton’s enthusiasm, Gold Wing sales in Britain continued to be slow, but the luxury touring market in the USA started to become big business for Honda in the late 1970s and in 1979 a dedicated manufacturing plant was set up in Marysville, Ohio to manufacture Gold Wings in the USA. The following year the GL1100 and Interstate versions were released. The Gold Wing had found its direction.

JACK THE GIANT KILLER

In 1975 Honda released the CB400/4, a jewel of a bike that, in Britain at least, was recognised as a classic from the very start. The smallest four cylinder production motorcycle in the world and quite a small machine altogether, the Honda CB400/4 was a miniature CB750 with modern, sporty styling that appealed to British eyes, if not American ones. Riders were denied four silencers but instead were given a four into one system with fantastic sweeping downpipes that looked even better. So good, in fact, it was chromium plated art.

The 400/4’s engine was sewing machine smooth. It was much slimmer than the CB750 with clean, simple lines. It had short, flattish bars and foot controls set further back than the Japanese norm. And although the bike only had the same basic frame and forks as earlier middleweight Hondas and its rear shock absorbers could be found wanting, it was nimble and somehow handled more sweetly than could have been expected. This and its overall willingness gave it an endearing character.

It was a bike that linked back to the factory’s 1960s racers but young riders weren’t too bothered about that. It was good looking in its own right. It was great fun to ride. Its smooth, free revving, in-line four cylinder engine could take whatever abuse was given (usually plenty). It was fast enough, it was good handling enough, and all in all it was a thoroughly ‘together’ motorcycle.

Gerald Davison: The 400/4 was a brilliant bike with a wonderful engine. The timing was right. It had a fresh look with the four-into-one pipes. It was a bike that was most photographed from one side only because of that. No one ever took a picture of the other side. The only thing was it was too smooth, it was like a sewing machine and it had no real character although people were excited by its smoothness because it set a new standard.

Dave Minton: The 400/4 was just superb! It really was. A superb little motorbike and a joy to ride. Amazing performance. You felt like Jack the Giant Killer on it. Woe betide the bloke on the CB750 in front of you because you could get under his elbows with it. There was only one other middleweight motorcycle that impressed me as much and that was the Moto Morini three and a half Sport which could just about hold its own with a 400/4.

You could tour on the Morini if you wished, but the Honda was hopeless for that. Forget it! It was the kind of motorcycle on which you start racing fly specks on your goggles. You see a dot in the distance and you’re going to catch it and you don’t! You can’t relax on a 400/4. It’s not built for that. The Morini wasn’t so intense but if you concentrated and really stirred it along it was a motorcycle capable of excelling itself and it could perform almost to the level of the 400/4, and you could relax on it. But the Honda 400/4 has a definite place in my affections, very much so.

Gerald Davison: There was a saying that still gets bandied about, race on a Sunday, sell on a Monday and certainly through the seventies that was still true and that was why we had to get back into racing and go to the Island again and the 400/4 immediately did a fantastic job for us, straight out of the box, with John Kidson winning the Formula Three race on one in 1977.

Dave Minton: They say in Japanese business nothing happens by chance. Well, almost nothing. I was told a very interesting story about the 400/4 by a Japanese journalist. Japanese factories are very disciplined. People do their jobs and the demarcation zones are quite clearly marked as to where responsibilities start and end. Honda had brought out the 350/4 to appeal to the American market. It was assumed that it would be very popular with inexperienced motorcyclists who wanted a multi but it flopped abysmally. It was exported here too and to Europe but it didn’t catch on and they ended up with loads of complete engines back in Japan.

They were going to write the project off as something that didn’t work out and accept the loss but then some motorcycle enthusiasts from Honda’s production department asked if they could do something with it. Honda said yes so using parts and equipment that was available to them from spares bins they turned the 350 engine into a 400 and built a sportster. They took all the touring auxiliaries off the 350, altered the riding position slightly and turned it into a proper little sports bike. It sold like hot cakes the world over, especially in Britain, and it’s probably the only time that anything like that has ever happened in Honda.

The Honda CB400/4 was an important bike in Britain and hugely popular. It was a mini superbike that encouraged fast, sporting riding and could take being redlined in every gear, but it was also sweet, well balanced and forgiving. Its owners adored it. They felt great connectedness with it. But in the USA sales were disappointing and after just four years it would be replaced in the Honda range by a plain and relatively unloved parallel twin. To British enthusiasts, the decision seemed incomprehensible.

SHAFTED

At the mid-point of the 1970s, Yamaha’s fiery two-strokes were selling as well as ever but the factory had yet to establish a large capacity superbike in its range and the conventional, old fashioned, British-style XS650, the once vibratory, ill-handling parallel twin that had been tamed by Percy Tait, was still the biggest Yamaha for sale in Britain. The internally complex TX750 had been discontinued without the promising but problematic twin ever being officially imported by Mitsui UK and Yamaha’s engineers had gone back to their drawing boards for a complete rethink.

In 1976 Yamaha was ready to try again and the factory launched a completely new motorcycle, the XS750. It wasn’t a superbike, the game having been moved on by the Kawasaki Z1, but it was a competent and interesting large capacity motorcycle, full of innovative ideas and different to anything else on the market. And it was to Yamaha’s great credit the company’s engineers had attempted something truly unique, rather than simply build a bigger Honda CB750, as Kawasaki had done or a better one, as Suzuki was busy trying to achieve.

The XS750 was indeed different. A three cylinder double overhead camshaft four-stroke sports tourer, it had shaft drive made by Getrag (who made BMW’s shafts), alloy wheels, three brake discs, self cancelling indicators (new at the time) and vacuum fuel taps. Having a three cylinder engine, it was narrower than the Z1 and CB750. It also had a distinct character and made an extraordinary and peculiarly pleasing sound. It was a heavy bike, partly because of the shaft, and by comparison with its rivals, a bit lacking in urge, but it was a still reasonably quick and its handling, although less than perfect when pressing on, was acceptable for fast touring.

Despite its handling and performance limitations, the bike was well received by the press but sales were modest, partly because it wasn’t as fast as its four pot rivals and partly because it lacked their dashing looks. Although modern and up to date in appearance, like Honda’s Gold Wing it was a dense, solid, worthy looking bike lacking obvious panache or elan. The bike kicked off a bit of an advertising war between Yamaha and BMW (Supershaft versus Meistershaft) and forced BMW to cut its prices.

ITALIAN BEAUTIES

Dramatic, fantastic, stylish Italian motorcycles continued to arrive that were full of panache and elan. After first building a close copy of Honda’s 500/4, the Quattro, engineers working for Argentinian tycoon Alejandro De Tomaso shoved the revived Benelli brand further into the spotlight by producing the 750 Sei, a sensational six cylinder red and chrome superbike (no other word for it) styled by Ghia.

The Sei, which had been first announced three years earlier, finally arrived on British roads during 1975, the same year Dave Minton tested a special British version of Laverda’s 1000cc 3C developed by Laverda’s British importers Roger and Richard Slater. Described in the test as the 3CE (E for England), it would soon become known as the legendary (no other word for it) Laverda Jota.

At the same time Ducati was busy upgrading its thoroughbred racer on the road, the 750SS to 860cc (it would be badged the 900SS) and, despite De Tomaso’s misgivings, in 1976 Moto Guzzi released its startlingly beautiful (no other word for it) 850 Le Mans.

BENELLI SEI

The six cylinder Benelli 750 Sei was a Ferrari of a motorcycle; brash, flashy, ostentatious and loud in its outward appearance, but also exhilarating to ride and full of verve and go. Motorcyclist Illustrated editor John McDermott rode an early one and found it was a bit snatchy and low geared in traffic but came into its own once given its head on country roads. He wrote: ‘...magic time began at a little over 5,000. At this reading the cogs snicked up and down like a hot wire through cheese spread, the six bugles played a cantata that had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, and my teeth filled the perspex window like an Esther Rantzen impersonation’.

According to McDermott the bike was ‘...as fleet of foot as something half its weight and size...’ ‘...changed direction with just a squeeze of the knees...’ and ‘...powered around corners like a tramcar’. And later, thoroughly in the groove while flying northwards on the A65 into the Yorkshire Dales, McDermott found the Benelli steered precisely and positively and ‘...gushed along, flicking from side to side, braking, cruising and accelerating through the few straight bits’. The only serious negatives, according to McDermott, were the front disc brakes were too good, perhaps dangerously so, and that it was all too easy to scrape the bike’s underside while cornering.

The Benelli sold for £1,700 in 1975. As well as importers Agrati Sales of Nottingham, 19 hopeful Benelli dealers from around Britain advertised in the edition of Motorcyclist Illustrated in which the test appeared. But sales were few. The bike was a talking point wherever it was seen, it could obviously perform, and its design included numerous clever and thoughtful touches, but there were legitimate concerns as to whether the Italians could reach the engineering standards required for the successful mass production of such a sophisticated, fine tolerance, Japanese-type engine, as well as question marks about the quality of the bike’s finish and the dependability of its electrical components.

The Benelli 500 Quattro was also expensive and sold poorly. Its engine was a blatant and very close copy of the Honda 500/4 (some parts were actually interchangeable) but it was a better handling and less wayward motorcycle than the Honda. Even more extravagant was the 250 Quattro, a tiny and highly distinctive looking 231cc version of the Benelli four with swooping, full length bodywork. It was first sold in 1976.

A DANCE IN THREE-QUARTER TIME

To preserve his driver’s licence, Dave Minton went to an unopened stretch of dual carriageway in France to carry out high speed testing of the Slater Brothers modified version of Laverda’s 1000cc triple, then being called the 3CE. On the bike, he achieved speeds of around 150mph, 20mph more than the standard 3C, and he found the experience bewildering and disturbing rather than thrilling.

‘...Weird things happen at ultra-high speeds that I admit are beyond my ability to both fully comprehend and control...’ ‘...at that speed I found it hard to breathe and still look ahead...’ ‘...I was buffeted by the wind so hard I found the sensation indistinguishable from the movement of the machine itself...’ ‘...the sheer violence of everything surprised me more than anything else. The noise confused me and I was all too conscious of my inability to control any sudden, haphazard situation completely...’

The 3CE differed from the standard 3C (which had been softened to meet US emissions requirements since Minton rode a factory prototype in Italy in 1973) in having an exhaust system with a bigger collector pipe and less restrictive silencers which allowed spent gases to escape efficiently without choking the engine (the system was made by Healey Brothers in Redditch). The bike also had revised carburettor settings.

Further, the 3CE was fitted with the fork yoke from the SFC 750 endurance racer, which altered the trail, and also the harder fork springs and rear shock absorbers of the SFC. With gearing raised by five percent from 3C spec the bike reached 120mph at 6,100 revs and could accelerate hard from 120 to 130mph before power started to weaken. The 1000cc Laverda’s 180 degree crank and vertical twin plus one firing order gave it a unique sound and feel. Lumpy at low revs, it smoothed out and emitted a gorgeous smooth roar when opened up.

After discussions with Slaters, who had also been involved in the development of the 3C, the Laverda factory put the revised bike into limited production, calling it the Jota after a Spanish castanet dance performed in rapid three-quarter time. The prototype had been fitted with wire wheels, which flexed and wandered off line at very high speeds causing Minton’s bamboozlement. Production Jotas would have cast alloy wheels. The Jota was an exclusive motorcycle. Built in small numbers and not sold in America, more exist now than were ever made.

The Laverda Jota was tall, heavy and intimidating with a hefty clutch and a heavy throttle. It was slow steering, hard work at low speeds and not as fine handling as Ducatis and Moto Guzzis. Fast sweepers were its forte, rather than rapid changes of direction. Additionally, a design fault in its electronic ignition made it hard to hold it at a steady speed at around 4,000rpm (70mph). But it had lots of character and was immensely powerful and, significantly, it was the fastest standard bike of its day. Like the Vincent Black Shadow two decades previously and the Brough Superior twenty years before that, it was a magnificent brute of a motorcycle; a blood and guts, power and glory motorbike that would be written deep into motorcycling folklore and fully deserve its place there.

The Jota cost more than £2,000 in 1976. A lot more than a Kawasaki Z900 (successor to the Z1), its closest rival for the title of King of the Street, which was listed at £1,369. But the Laverda Jota was an enthusiast’s motorcycle, whereas the Kawasaki might be considered a poseur’s bike. Not that there weren’t some very quick poseurs around.

The Laverda was geared low for maximum performance, whereas the Z900 had a cruising top gear, which was a give away. The Kawasaki was capable as long as it was not really stretched. A good looking and obviously iconic motorcycle even in its day, the Kawasaki was built for cruising, for steady bend swinging and for riding easy around town. It looked the business. It was a style classic. But the Laverda urged its rider to stretch himself again and again and again.

The Jota was prominent in British production racing in the late 1970s, taking lap records all over the country and winning several national championships. Pete ‘PK’ Davies won the Avon Roadrunner Production Championship on one in 1976 and when he was being treated in hospital following a huge accident at the TT in 1980, his wife Anita reportedly said to Richard Slater: ‘If Pete comes through this I will never try to stop him racing, but I want you to promise never to give him another Laverda. He won’t give in when he is on a Laverda.’

Bill Haylock tested a Jota in the February 1977 edition of Bike magazine and Velocette riding eccentric Royce Creasey, a regular contributor to Bike, apparently said to him of the big Laverda: ‘Y’know, that’s sorta like the last of the real motorcycles, man.’ At the end of the test, Haylock agreed. The Jota was indeed ‘...real rough, tough biking stuff...’ ‘...a big-inch musclebike that has been designed with ‘an old fashioned single-mindedness of purpose – to go bloody fast and sod all other considerations’. It was, Haylock finally concluded ‘...truly a bike to perpetuate the tradition of one litre legends like the Vincent Black Shadow’.

When Haylock had arrived to collect the test bike it was being warmed up at Slater Brothers. Its exhaust note ‘...a snarling rasp that ruptured the air with each blip of the throttle...’ which ‘...gave my ears a treat they hadn’t had in thousands of miles of road testing’. In Haylock’s view, ‘...four-stroke triples make soulful sounds...’ and it gave him ‘...childish pleasure...’ to drop down a gear in town ‘...to make the exhaust note reverberate against the walls – it’s such a lovely noise’. The Jota was an expression of Laverda’s ‘...engineering flair...’ it had ‘...thoroughbred style and handling...’ and its engine, which had casings, like its wheels and other parts of the machine, that had been cast in Laverda’s own foundry, was ‘...a beautiful hunk – a living, fire breathing piece of sculpture in polished and matt sandcast alloy’.

Haylock wrote of the Laverda’s precision, manifested by it sticking to a line on straights and through curves and how it inspired confidence ‘...to turn into a bend harder and straighter than you’d normally dare’. It did, however, he discovered, weave slightly if he sat up suddenly from a crouching position at speeds over 120mph. Perhaps a matter of aerodynamics? ‘Anyhow, at 140mph the crouched riding position is far more comfortable anyway!’

A little slow off the mark as usual, Motorcycle Sport first tested a Jota in 1977, by which time the British price for the machine has risen to £2,305. The magazine’s tester described the bike as: ‘An extraordinary motorcycle with enormous speed capability, superb handling and brakes. Or putting it another way, how to lose your licence in style.’

He continued to enthuse: ‘Perfection, sheer perfection. That is the only way we can describe the most recent addition to the range offered by those purveyors of fine machinery, Moto Laverda. It is a pure motorcycle, designed to do just one thing – that is, to go fast in all conditions. In this context it is unsurpassable...’

The exhaust note was found to be ‘...a delight to the rider and other motorcyclists but perhaps not to less finely attuned ears...’ when, at 5,000rpm, ‘...the big machine settled down to a contented roar’. There was more. It was ‘...the most potent, brutal and exhilarating motor we have ever had the pleasure of trying...’ ‘..a bike that gives and demands only the best...’. And finally, in the tester’s view, the Laverda Jota was ‘...one of the most desirable and beautifully assembled motorcycles in the world’.

VISUAL ATTACK

The Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans was Italy’s bike of the year in 1973, three years before it even existed, a prototype having been shown to the jury in 1972. The bike had a large half fairing, linked disc brakes and a gear change mechanism reportedly much improved over that of its smaller capacity parent, the Moto Guzzi V7 Sport. Best of all, it looked good. Production was eagerly anticipated.

But development of a production version was delayed by the De Tomaso takeover. De Tomaso derided Guzzi’s shaft drive, pushrod V-twins. He called them trucks and was convinced Moto Guzzi’s destiny lay with Japanese style four-stroke fours and two-stroke twins. He also had high hopes for the exotic Benelli Six.

But he was eventually persuaded V-twins had at least a short-term future and work on a larger capacity sports twin recommenced in 1975. The Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans debuted at the Milan Show in November that year and was finally released during 1976. It was a stunning motorcycle. Small, solid, strong and muscular with hardly any chrome on it, it looked sensational standing still and was, in its day, perhaps the ultimate in motorcycle styling as an art form.

Available in blood red (of course) or ice blue, the Le Mans had aggressive sporting lines and featured clip-on handlebars, an exquisite painted cockpit fairing, small smart plastic side panels and mudguards in body colour. A pair of 12 spoke cast alloy wheels complemented the dull silver of the purposeful looking engine which retained the distinctive ribbed cases and brutish, jutting cylinders of the V7 Sport. The exhaust system was entirely black and the top and the lower sides of the petrol tank were also painted black to continue the top line of the unusual, angular sculpted seat and complement the lines of Lino Tonti’s long double cradle frame. Altogether it was a styling masterpiece.

The Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans was also one of the fastest production bikes in the world and one of the best handling and stopping motorcycles ever made. The Le Mans was a quintessential 1970s sports bike from a time when the Italians were setting the pace, albeit at a price. Its long-stroke 850cc engine was more powerful than that of the 750S and S3 from which it was developed (stopgap models which succeeded the V7) and it had a true race-proven chassis.

Le Mans prototypes had performed admirably at the 24 hr Bol D’Or from 1971 onwards, hence the model’s name, but the bike was not actually a winner at Le Mans, or anywhere else of great significance, and in fact it was never as successful on the track as the V7 Sport, but that didn’t matter. The Le Mans was a sensational machine.

The interim S and S3 750cc sports models which were also derived from the V7 Sport had also been dramatic looking motorcycles. Black, with bold diagonal flashes of orange on the tank and side panels, they had instant kerb appeal. The S3 arrived in Britain during 1974 and Motorcycle Sport found it unforgiving, noisy and uncomfortable, single minded and hopeless in town with no pillion room, poor finish and weak ancillaries.

The usual Italian story, in fact and according to MCS: ‘Most people would cry off after a rumble round the block on one of these, preferring the silky manner of a Jap multi.’ But, the MCS tester reckoned, it did what it was intended to do and ‘...the absolute superiority of its performance so convincingly destroys any questions about its worth that detail failings are forgotten’. The MCS man praised its first class disc brakes (which had been fitted to the last V7s), excellent suspension and loping engine.

The Moto Guzzi Le Mans shared the long, rigid frame of its predecessors and the bike needed muscling about a bit to get it through twisty bends effectively. Long sweeping corners were its forte and once cranked into a fast sweeper a Le Mans was extraordinarily and uncannily stable, staying exactly on line no matter what the road conditions until its rider picked it up. The exhaust note was muted to meet American regulations, but it was found the engine breathed more easily with small holes drilled around the standard silencers’ main exit holes and optional Lafranconi pipes liberated the engine still further. With them fitted the bike made a truly delicious noise.

The Le Mans’ 844cc engine was generally of better quality than that of the S3. It had higher compression pistons and different valve timing, bigger valves and racing carburettors with open bellmouths and other racing components. Motorcyclist Illustrated tested the Le Mans in August 1976 and found it was definitely a 130mph motorcycle and probably capable of 135mph. A ‘...pure sportster...’ it was a glorious motorcycle that ‘...is what it looks like, and looks like what it is’.

It was also a bike that took some getting used to. As with all Guzzi shaft drive motorcycles, torque reaction from the shaft meant shutting off in a left-hand bend would make the bike sit up and accelerating harder would pull it down further, and riders had to contend with the opposite effect on right-handers. And if this was not disconcerting enough, the Le Mans was fitted with Moto Guzzi’s patented linked brake system whereby the right hand lever operated the caliper on the right front disc and the right foot pedal activated the front left caliper as well as the back disc brake. A valve controlled the proportionate forces exerted front and rear by the foot brake and kept the ratio constant.

The system worked well and with practice all non-emergency braking could be taken care of by the right foot, leaving the right hand free to control the throttle. This was all very well, but it was difficult for experienced riders to break long established habits which normally entailed very little use of the foot brake, and for them not to feel disorientated when the front dipped without them squeezing the hand lever.

The Le Mans would have a production span of 19 years and the more fully faired Mark II was thought to be an even better bike than the original which has become known as the Mark I, certainly in wet weather. But it is the Mark I, built from 1976 to 1978 that is considered the more attractive, and more collectable machine.

Gerald Davison: The two motorcycles that I used to hold up to our own R&D people as refreshingly different were the Yamaha XS750, a shaft drive bike with a lovely engine, a real motorcycle engine with a bit of a rumble to it, and the Moto Guzzi Le Mans which I thought was a fabulous bike. It had lots of the things we didn’t have in our bikes. It was smaller, more compact, handled better and it had a very iconic engine. The reliability wasn’t always the best but it was a very good bike to ride, a brilliant, brilliant bike.

I didn’t give any thought to De Tomaso’s Benellis. No thought at all to be honest. They were not competition for us. They didn’t sell in sufficient numbers and I had no interest in them. In fact, in the 1970s the Italians as a whole were not a real competitor for us at all; the Italian bikes were being sold in such small numbers. All the competition really was among the Japanese makers.

SIR DUKE

Fabio Taglioni’s L-twin 750SS desmodromic valve engine was expensive to manufacture and Ducati’s chief engineer was told to make it easier to put together, and also more reliable in operation and simpler to maintain. He set about improving it and the result was the ‘square case’ 860, an engine that was indeed quicker and easier to assemble than the 750, but which was still a complicated and intricate machine that needed careful setting up and frequent attention in use. And, like its smaller, ‘round case’ forebear, Fablioni’s new angularly encased masterpiece was a work of art.

The 860cc engine, which was available with desmodromic valve gear and conventional return springs, was not designed to be beautiful but there was definite beauty in its uncompromising engineering. It had vertically split crankcases and valve drive gears which ran in a proud chest on its right side. The crankshaft itself, which was manufactured and bolted together with great care, ran on massive ball bearing races with a heavy caged needle roller bearing big end. A single bevel gear on the end of the crank drove two shaft gears through right angles. The shafts ran in ball races and transmitted power via bevel gears to camshafts, one in each of the cylinder heads.

The first application of the desmodromic version of the engine was the limited edition production racing special, the 900SS developed in 1975. Just 200 were planned. A skeletal motorcycle, particularly when fitted with the slim steel tank of the 750 Sport (large, fibreglass ‘Imola’ tanks were also specified), it had monster carburettors and glorious straight through exhausts as standard. The sound it made was spine tingling. It also had spirit, style and sinewy strength. It was a greyhound, a Jessie Owens of a motorcycle. And like the 750SS before it, there was magic in its history, in its visual beauty and in its thrilling sound, as well as in the breathtaking punch of its performance. In 1976, Ducati decided to soften the 900SS slightly and put it into limited production but it remained a rare and expensive machine.

Dave Minton tested a 900SS in early 1976. It was, he said, a motorcyclist’s motorcycle, an enthusiast’s bike like a Vincent and not part of the mainstream. Concluding his report, which was published in the March edition of Motorcyclist Illustrated of that year, he said: ‘This is undoubtedly one of the two finest motorcycles in the world. I leave you to consider the other one. But it’s not for shopping runs fellers, not for commuting, or camping. It’s one man’s dry road runner built for nothing more than sheer pleasure. Just remember it.’

Bike magazine’s (Wild) Bill Haylock had to wait until 1977 before he could borrow a Ducati 900SS for a test. After struggling in dense town and city traffic he at last broke out into the Yorkshire countryside and the road uncoiled under his wheels.

‘Out onto bleak moors and the road became pure joy. Traffic evaporated and the road opened out over the lazy undulations of an empty landscape, adrenaline pumped and brain cells began to work overtime as that high of intense awareness only an ultra-fast bike brings on came over me. It’s that keyed-up state of almost hypnotic concentration on the blurring road and the feedback that comes up from it through every point where body and bike contact. And yet in its hyperactive state the brain snatches in momentary extraneous observations: the open-mouthed gape of a motorist picnicking by the road glimpsed for a millisecond as the horizon heels over in a 90 degree bend, faces peering from the back of a van that vanish the next moment as I snap open the throttle from 30mph in second gear and the distant hills of limestone country baring their white, petrified skeletons in the sunlight beyond the green blur of the roadside meadows.’

Back in 1975 Dave Minton had tested Ducati’s new roadster, the 860GT, which used the spring valve version of Taglioni’s new engine. It was, he said, ‘...a steel horse with the heart of a tiger...’ and ‘...a big, imperfect yet flawless animal of massively gentle power...’ on which he found he could push himself further and harder than on other manufacturers’ machines. ‘Just at the point when on most bikes you feel that enough is enough, not because of anything proven but because of creepy feelings that something, somewhere is over the top, the Ducati kept right on for the moon just as easily as if it was half that speed.’