NorVin . Norton Vincent .

acotrel said:

Who would want to buy a fifties Volkswagen .

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Yeah, nobody bought any of them!

acotrel said:

The Chinese will always have problem building anything really inspiring, unless they copy very carefully, and then most people will prefer the original. They haven't built an F1 car yet, or the equivalent t o a Ducati.

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Chinese motorcycle quality is improving in leaps and bounds. Those with even short memories will remember when the brits said the japanese will never build big bikes...

And if you'd noticed, Ducati and BMW and others are having parts made in China - including whole assembled engines. Folks are already taking bets as to when the Chinoise will win their first Superbike race - quick, change the rules, that'll throw them off....

Have you seen this Egli ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITuYJMNm ... plpp_video

Looks like a very close relative of the green one shown above...

Can't help wondering if thats how they had been built back in the 50's, where would they be today ??

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing....

The original Egli Vincents were built by Slater Bros. of Bromwich, England in about 1966. They use the early style Egli frame. I have a two stroke Egli frame from the se venties, it is much more rigid. Patrick Godet makes replicas of the Slater Egli Vincent - great quality, not cheap !.

This is the later frame - takes a Yamaha TZ750 motor :

The first Eglis were built by Fritz Egli and Terry Prince. Slater came along afterward. He sold kits rather than complete bikes. As far as I know Slater himself never built a single frame, they were jobbed out to a variety of frame builders. Some were good, some were atrocious. They varied somewhat from the original design. A friend has one of the Slater kits, never assembled. Headstock angle is just 22 degrees. Terry told me that he and Fritz Egli chose 27 degrees for the headstock because this was known to work well on a proven race bike- the Norton Manx.
The 22 degree headstock on the Slater Egli I measured may have been unintended. Terry told that he attempted to assemble a Slater kit for a customer. The frame was built with a twist such that the front wheel sat 1.5 "out of plumb when the rear wheel was plumb.

Godet tries to come as close as possible to Egli's original design. He is licensed by Egli to use the name.

Glen

Yes, interesting. I see that Ducati have gone to the original [B series] Vincent minimalist type steeringhead box frame [albeit in carbon] for their new superbike [even though it was rejected by Rossi for Moto G.P.].
As for authoritarianism spoiling things , that is true for Dorna today, but old Adolf,- faults notwithstanding - was a real motorhead, & fully backed Nazi science in motorsport -[1st ton-up I.o.M. TT lap & etc].

Adolph's authoritarian approach is interesting. Right from after WW1 the fascists seemed to believe you could get results by regimenting everyone, and In Germany it seemed to work, but it went sour due to a mad leader and I suggest that always must happen under those circumstances - that model must always eventrually topple. It is not the same as an industrial democracy situation with common goals and profit sharing, team based encouraging individual contribution of creativity. The Japanese don't even go that far, their controls are internalised, and the system will leave workers for dead under certain circumstances. Germany is now highly unionised, and their ingrained quality culture is the secret of their success. I don't know where America is going, and manufacturing in Australia is pretty much finished. We cannot compete with the Chinese on their own terms, we must move upmarket in a quality sense, and it is never going to happen, For years our guys had tariff protection, and could sell our public their garbage because it was cheaper than the imports. They now expect to continue without making the effort to change the culture. We are really stuffed !
My own education and training has been as a scientist - industrial chemist. I worked in weapons and aircraft development my whole life - no jobs any more.

acotrel said:

seemed to believe you could get results by regimenting everyone

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We are not being 'regimented' ??

Geez, you try going to kindy (school) and coloring the grass anything but green in your coloring book !! Or not paying your tax bill.

Or riding on the wrong side of the road......

Regiment . ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... tjeY#t=79s

There are still people who use the old military model when running businesses, instead of basing their actions on risk management, and empowering their workers to self-manage. It takes creativity and discipline to deliver a quality product. The modern Japanese and Germans seem to do it by using the peer group to self-regulate the culture. We should be way past the old 'leave your brains at the door stuff ', but in Australia we are not ! Our organisations are not what you would call 'learning organisations'. Our managers retain their power base because of their grasp on their little bit of information. It is like the olden days when the Church had the key to the bible, and exerted power by interpreting it to the masses. Very few managers would ever write a realistic and effective management system, and use it for training - they would be making themselves redundant.

Ever see a motorcycle designed by a committee ??!!

Japanese motorcycles are not built by committees, nor are they designed under authoritarian direction. The controls are internalised and based on not losing face in front of their peer group. But the opportunities to exercise the ir personal creativity, must be at the maximum when you look at the results. You must be joking if you believe that sort of excellence could ever come from one of the old-fashioned hierarchies. The Vincent and the SS100 Brough and the Manx Norton are the only examples that I can think of, and they weren't so flash !
The BMW RS255 Compressor is an example of something quite different ! The only reason the allies won WW2 was because we had industrial democracy.

acotrel said:

The only reason the allies won WW2 was because we had industrial democracy.

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Have no idea what this glib phrase actually means....

Reminds though of the joke about the communist factory owner visiting the west, in a factory at lunchtime. The siren went, and all the workers filed out. The vistor was aghast, "all the workers are escaping !". When the siren went again later, and the the workers returned, all he could think about was where to buy one of those sirens....

Yeah,well, actually - weight of numbers won the war, & while Hitler certainly took an informed interest in technical developments of all kinds of machine [those 'Silver Arrows' G.P. Mercs/A.U.s were really something - I read that when taken back to Soviet Russia as war booty for technical analysis the Russians sawed one A.U. mill in 1/2! - to see inside `cause they didnt have the special tools/talent/Nazi scientists that assembled them - on hand], he did bite off abit more than he could chew, enemies-wise.

'Have no idea what this glib phrase actually means....
'

What it means is that we did not use slave labour. A friend of mine was captured in Crete and marched 2000 miles through Italy up into Germany, and ended up in a stalag for three or four years. He was coerced into working in a factory making fleece lined boots. He and other Australians got hold of pieces of razor blade, They slit the linings of the boots where the feet go, for shift after s hift, right throughout the whole production. The boots were intended for the German troops at the Russian front. How would you be trying to use t hose guys on Project Dorna - V2 Rockets ?
Get real, when you coerce your workers you get subversion. My mate and the others were lucky not to get shot, but the likelihood of that was no deterrent.

@Rohan
There were three distict national differences noticed when the Japanese took Singapore in WW2, and thousands of troops ended up in Changi prison. The British retained their class system, the Yanks acted as individuals, and the Australians were the ones who developed the support groups. We think differently to you, and that was also shown in WW1. Our officers led from the rear and delegated with confidence , and people like Monash were professional engineers. When the Yanks arrived in 1917, the war had been going for three years and our guys already knew how to fight it. The Yank officers led from the front, which was admirable but not sane. Our guys found many Yanks wandering in no man's land having lost their officers - killed, they got hold of them and showed them how to survive and win. By that time most of our guys were a bit off the planet, a lot had been on Gallipoli in 1914. The 'cult of the individual' is not that smart.

There were so many factors in outcome of WWII, even who/what actually won to continue on in other forms. Anywho one factor not often recognized was that the German people were mostly farm boys that only knew animal and crop skill with animal or man power, so were not nearly as handy at figuring out and fixing their equipment as the ole American kids with lawnmower to hot rods and tractors and trucks in their blood.

Btw here's some view's on the Fuehrer's motorcycling involvements
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... sLmWhgid9s

First Christmass of W W 1 , the troops excvhanged gifts and sung carols with their opposite numbers . Some got to talking of why they were there . . .

They were warned theyd be charged with fraterniseing with the enemy . Couldnt have them stop shooting each other . Have to keep the population down some how . :roll:

I think I would have made a very good German - I absolutely love this video clip ! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CiqS38Q3nY

This is a good read:

http://www.sportscardigest.com/bmw-wins ... years-ago/

Perhaps we should fit a Zoller blower to a BMW R1200 ?