A different kind of Manxman

Here's one that many Nortoneers may not have seen.
A Neville Evans Manxman 500, that he built in small quantities in the 1990s.
A cross between a manx (which he didn't have the rights to the name) and an Inter, as a short-stroke road bike version.

This one pops up for sale, now and then.
Gone, but this link goes to a similar bike.
http://me-moto.com/norton/54619-norton- ... evans.html

In the days when I was working for a millionaire we bought one directly from Neville - it was horribly vibrating and very slow. Didn´t want to rev so I checked the cam - turned out it had the timing of a 1934 Inter - not what you want to go quick.... I corrected the balance factor and made a different cam for it. Then it was allright. As we had ordered 3 more engines and some parts when we bought the bike I built two roadgoing Manx look-alikes and one racer. These were only started once to see if everything was oiltight /running etc. As the millionaire speculated with his money and lost most of it due to lack of intelligence, I saw the writing on the wall and left the shop to become selfemployed. A couple years later those three bikes came up for sale. Nobody knew anything about them but someone found out that I built them so the telefone kept ringing and I was answering a lot of questions. The asking price was too high so they remained unsold. A year later the millionaire was no millionaire anymore and desperately needed money. The bikes were displayed in a scootershop nearby and the stupid sold them for 9500 Euros each - as I had just bought a new race outfit a couple days earlier I couldn´t find the money to buy one of these - would have been nice to tune it to the limit and make a real flyer out of it. As I recall they had Weslake speedway cranks and BSA B50 pistons in the motors. The Weslake crank is a tough thing so the bottom end should be good for a lot of revs.

Cheers

Hartmut

Hi too all,
reading only here forever, but seeing the Evans Manxman was too much for me.

As Hartmut said these were sold in 2003 for 9500€ and one and a half Day i thougt I was the lucky Guy.
After seeing the advert for the bike I called the shop, said "it is bought if its running, please reserve it to me until Friday".
Answer:"No Problem, come along (700km)"
Friday morning with hired car and trailer called them again, and.... "Oh sorry, just sold to a guy from Spain"
- But you said it is reserved for me.
- First comes, first buys!

Man was i pissed off!

A few years later one of the bikes appeared at a Ducati Dealer nearby for 16.000€ ...
But then i had bought my P11 and a House, Family and so on...

These are pics of the advertisment of the "stupids" in 2003





regards,
Andre´

There you go! I did not think that I ever get to see the bikes again. I never took pics when I built them - so thank you very much. These pics were taken in the stupid´s shop. The owner was never keeping to his promises - so I am not surprised that he did not wait for you and sold the bike to someone else. Even with the lowish performance the price was a steal.
As the now ex-millionaire never had a clue what a bike was worth he bought indonesian britbikes at the truckload. :shock: Needless to say most of them were totally run into the ground and required much too much work as everything was bent or broken. I should have taken pics of the welded conrods and brazed primary sprockets etc. - what a laugh I had in the workshop at every other engine or gearbox that I opened ;-)
As he was so clueless I bought a 500 Velocette genuine factory scrambler (what he thought is a canibalized road bike - he didn´t even realize that it is his only Velocette) and a model 18 Norton for the premium price of 2000 € - he was smiling at my stupidity, I was smiling as I knew the Velocette is rare and was running, tested it in his shop when he wasn´t around :mrgreen:

Cheers

Hartmut