Dunstall: Performance Guru or marketing genius...?

I see lots of references to Dunstall on here, particularly with regards to cams and exhaust pipes etc. and it got me thinking...

Was Dunstall really up there with the Guru's of Nortonness regarding engineering input and extraction of performance?

Or was he most successful at marketing and selling fancy bits and 'snake oil' to the coffee bar crowd?

What's the consensus guys...?

I think he was of an era. Looking back it doesn't seem that impressive, but at the time he was pretty good.

i think it was a combination of race wins development and hitting the market at it`s peak

From what i understand Dunstall initially had access to lots of the factory Domi racer parts bins when Norton decided to pull the race team

Paul had some race success using the Factory parts as a starting point then going on to develop his own aftermarket parts range when supply dried up

Dunstall also hit the cafe racer market at it`s peak selling and marketing his bolt on performance goodies based on his race success

dont forget paper catalogue`s were new in the 1960`s and only used by very few dealers so yes good marketing and self promotion was
responsible for his rapid rise Dunstall also embraced the use of the Motorcycle press i am sure i have seen ads in old copies of Motor cycle and he did
advertise heavily in the MCN in the 70`s when he pushed in to the Japanese motorcycle market

so i think a combination of race success good marketing and Luck selling product in to a rapidly expanding market where demand out stripped supply

The" Lads" wanted to look racy , Dunstall moved up a step from just Ace bars and swept backs .

I seem to remember Dunstall made some rear set footrests and clip-ons that were OK. His big bore kit was 800cc and probably did a bit for performance. The rest was probably just decoration. I can only remember a couple of commandos racing in Australia, which used his bits. It was the two stroke era and very difficult for an old style Brit bike to be competitive. A dunstallised commando was probably as good as most of the 650cc Tritons.
I don't think Paul Dunstall was ever a Steve Maney. However the beauty of his stuff is that it is genuine and from that era. If you read the old Motorcycle or Motorcycling magazines, it was a very tired and uninspiring time for club racers, unless they had a lot of money. It was a different world.

Don't know much about Dunstall's cams or cam offerings other than one I came by, PD/R2 B/540 WEC, a very hard metal (RC, > 70) for use with bearings rather than bushings (small dia on end supports), that was measured and found to be larger than a PW3 and smaller than a Norris D+, so a sizable cam that with the right components would have been noticeable.

When it came to making Norton twins go fast, Dunstall was a genius. His racing days happened a long time before the Commando and his involvement there.
No doubt some of the parts he offered for the Commando were not good for longevity. But fast, absolutely.
A friend who has owned many Commandos including a Combat said the fastest Commando he has ever owned or ridden, by a large margin, was his 810 Dunstall, full Dunstall engine.
Just look at what he did to a lowly 99 back in 1958. Manx Nortons at the time were approaching 140 MPH on long straights.
Manx Norton riders might expect a multi cylinder Gilera or MV Augusta to give them some trouble on straights, but not a sluggish old 99. I have ridden a 99 in top condition and they are slow old sloggers as delivered by Norton.

Mr. D Applegate of Hartley, Kent wrote this letter to the Editor of the "Motorcycle News" in October of 1958;

" Having seen P. Dunstall perform at Brands Hatch on his Norton Twin, which surely must be a 99, my friends and I would like to know more of the history of this machine which can pass Manx Nortons on the straight."

To make an 850 COMMANDO into a machine which can pass Manx Nortons on the straight even now takes a lot of no how and money , but to do it back then with a 99 as a weekend rider/ tuner?
Pure Genius on the racing end. Not too shabby at marketing either.
Perhaps not so great at overseeing production of parts headed for the retail market and primarily road use where longevity is an expectation.


Glen



Glen

I'm not to sure about Dunstall being a genius. In my opinion he did very well out of the Norton racing Dept sale. There's no doubt that his racing effort in the 60s, was excellent, but his retail stuff was very questionable. A couple of examples.
1/ Cams, my late lamented 650SS has a Dunstall racing cam, whilst it lasted the bike went very well, but it only lasted 4,500 miles
2/ The same bike came with a pair of his Dr Blair designed silencers. They were rusty FROM NEW, although they did sound pretty good.
3/ In the 60s and 70s we used to visit the shops that sold cafe racer stuff, and peel the chrome off of display items, not just Dunstall.

Having lived through the cafe racer era, there really was a lot of tat available. Dunstall was in the right place at the right time, for a marketing person. There was a disconnect between his racing side and his commercial side, with the commercial side suffering from a major lack of quality control, like a lot of other cafe racer suppliers.

Personally, and I realise that this may be difficult for some people, but if I was buying a motorcycle which was fitted with Dunstall stuff, the other bits of the bike would have to be pretty damn good to counterbalance the disincentive of the Dunstall bits.

cheers
wakeup

From a comment made to me out of earshot of the management by a Shop assistant at Dunstall’s shop in Well Hall Road about his produce, “they are Junk” –draw your own conclusion.

was-paul-dunstall-mad-t403.html?hilit=paul dunstall

If you wanted REAL JUNK thirty & forty years ago, Unity Equipe in Rochdale was the pace to go. Even if one of their exhaust systems actually fitted, the chrome fell off within a few months. What their parts are like now I can't say, but they certainly cannot be any worse.

Matchless said:

If you wanted REAL JUNK thirty & forty years ago, Unity Equipe in Rochdale was the pace to go. Even if one of their exhaust systems actually fitted, the chrome fell off within a few months. What their parts are like now I can't say, but they certainly cannot be any worse.

Click to expand...

I think a lot of it is the same stock.

I just had the opportunity to rebuild my Dunstall TLS front brake plate. The base plate appears to be a modified Triumph and is of good quality. The levers, connecting rod, cams, and brake shoes are on the crude side, which supports the negative comments above.

The brake is a good stopper, however, with no tendency to grab, which supports Dunstall's racing acumen.

Slick

The Dunstall mufflers on my '72 Combat with balanced pipes aren't pristine but still intact--they seem to be worth a BHP or two compared to peashooters




Tim Kraakevik
kraakevik@voyager.net

Marketing genius who benefited from acquiring the AMC race shop and knowing the late Jim Boughen or is it Bowen. He did the head work. I had a Blair exhaust
on my commando for a while the 2into 1 into 2 with the vaunted Dunstall decibel silencers. The quality was atrocious it defeated all my attempts to get it to seal and so never worked properly. Looked good mind but that did not save it from the dustbin. Apparently he was always seeking cheaper suppliers.

give the guy a break....

clearly a case of tight economics and 'seat-of-the-pants' engineering.
late 60's / early 70's GB was not a friendly place to manufacturing. [compare and contrast to Japan if you have the time]
Jim Comstock has more detailed analysis / precision tooling / ICE information available in his garage than existed in all of GB during this time period.

tomspro said:

give the guy a break....

clearly a case of tight economics and 'seat-of-the-pants' engineering.
late 60's / early 70's GB was not a friendly place to manufacturing. [compare and contrast to Japan if you have the time]
Jim Comstock has more detailed analysis / precision tooling / ICE information available in his garage than existed in all of GB during this time period.

Click to expand...

Whilst certainly not denying the depth of knowledge, range of skills, and capability of Jim Comstock, that's probably something of an exaggeration.

Paul Dunstall was in the right place at the right time. The fact that he went on to become a property developer after the ex AMC race shop bits ran out, pretty much says it all.
The stuff he sold, may have been well intentioned, and when designed by Dr Blair was almost certainly excellent, but the transition from a good design to a good product involves more than picking the cheapest option.

cheers
wakeup

wakeup said:

tomspro said:

give the guy a break....

clearly a case of tight economics and 'seat-of-the-pants' engineering.
late 60's / early 70's GB was not a friendly place to manufacturing. [compare and contrast to Japan if you have the time]
Jim Comstock has more detailed analysis / precision tooling / ICE information available in his garage than existed in all of GB during this time period.

Click to expand...

Whilst certainly not denying the depth of knowledge, range of skills, and capability of Jim Comstock, that's probably something of an exaggeration.

Paul Dunstall was in the right place at the right time. The fact that he went on to become a property developer after the ex AMC race shop bits ran out, pretty much says it all.
The stuff he sold, may have been well intentioned, and when designed by Dr Blair was almost certainly excellent, but the transition from a good design to a good product involves more than picking the cheapest option.

cheers
wakeup

Click to expand...

Not an exaggeration at all. Take a look at his EFI system, head flow analysis, spintron testing, custom billet crankshaft, crankcase breather, hydraulic clutch, hydraulic timing chain tensioner, Fullauto head development, etc, etc.

As for Dunstall, I've never seen anything that didn't look like cheap crap.

Perhaps we should point out that until the arrival of the Z1, it was then quoted that the Dunstall Norton 810, with the tall gearing option,
had a top speed of a claimed 133 mph and was thus considered to be the fastest production bike.

Noting that quite a limited run of modified Nortons was considered a 'production' bike, since Dunstall was registered as a manufacturer.
Although detractors pointed out that they weren't always that long lived in the motor dept...

This was all quite a while back.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, probably could have done better.

Well I can speak from experience as a long term owner of an 810 Dunstall.
I have never had a problem with the exhaust or had any leaks with the 2-1-2 system. I replaced the complete system about 3 years ago when I had a new stainless system made by Overlander from the originals. The mufflers at that stage still had reasonably good chrome, except for where the bike had been down the road. The chrome on the pipes was shot. No one can complain about almost 40 years from chrome. When it comes to mufflers I can remember a mates 750/4 Honda at about 2 years of age and the mufflers looked like they had been attacked with acid.
The chrome on the Dunstall rearset brake pedal and gear change lever is original and in good condition. The chrome on the clip-ons was good until about 10 years ago
The 810 cylinders pulled the studs at about 30,000 miles from memory but after having threaded inserts made and fitted I have not had any further problems.
The fibreglass seat did not last long before it parted company with the fixing strap and was fibreglassed back. I only recently made a new tank and seat to replace the originals after being inspired by Worntorn’s Vincent build.
Somewhere about 50,000 miles the fibreglass fairing cracked and became unstable. I was between Wilcannia and Broken Hill in the west part of NSW so I had to remove it and leave it beside the road. The fibreglass front guard fixing was ugly being held on with hose clamps and the mudguard was useless. I discarded it after my first ride in the rain.
The 5 speed gearbox was destroyed early in the bikes life. I jumped the bike and landed with a wide open throttle. At the time I was on a dirt track trying unsuccessfully to give some of the motorcross bikes a run. I would not even dream of such a thing now and can only blame myself for that mishap.
The Dunstall cam is original and is still in good condition, or it was at the last rebuild. I have memories of Honda camshafts, particularly the smaller engine Hondas wearing the lobes off the cam at very low mileages.
It is very easy to criticize Dunstall and Norton but the reality is that the Japanese bikes of the era also left a lot to be desired.
Finally my 810 Dunstall was always too quick for a Z1, much to the disgust of my best friend who had purchased one. We rode many miles together.
Ando

I had a pre 810 Commando Dunstall 750 , and the workmanship inside the motor was beautiful.