Dunstall racers 1960s

As quoted elsewhere on this website, I may have be incorrect about Ray Pickrell winning the British 500 championship on the 500 Domiracer as per the results;

http://www.woodgate.org/dunstall/results.html#1964

1964 for an interesting year for Dunstall. He came to the United States with 6 racers for Daytona. Two of them were his personal hot-rods which Dick Mann and Albert Gunter got rides on in the 200 mile race, and four of them were 88ss bikes with a lot of Manx parts and careful assembly that were bought and entered by the USA Norton distributor Berliner.

It was the biggest Norton effort at Daytona since the late 40s and early 50s when they did so well with the garden-gate Nortons.

Dick Mann worked his way from 29th to 9th place then dropped out with mechanical woes. Gunter and Ron Rall finished seventh and eighth. Only 38 of the 86 that started the race on the fast 3.81 mile track finished.

In the 100 mile Daytona race Kenny Hayes and Frank Scurria finished 1st and 3rd on tow of the Berliner Nortons.

Heinz Kegler was there to run the show for Berliner, Dunstall was there to take care of his babies. I talked with Frank Scurria more than once about the 1964 Daytona and his memory is very good on the details. The bike he rode ended up going back out west with him to California where he did well with it for the rest of 1964 in AFM racing. At one point Sparks and Witham built up a 750 engine for Frank to try in the bike and he wrecked it hard. The bike then went to ZDS Motors Bob Blair. Blair had S&W again fix up the 500cc engine with new parts including a roller cam(!) so he could enter it and another bike at Daytona a year or so later. Then the bike ended up in a basement at Sonny Angels dealership in California until recently bought and taken back to England by a very nice enthusiast who plans on preserving as much of the bikes patina and history as is possible while still getting it in running condition.

There is a BMW enthusiast in Florida who has corresponded with Paul Dunstall about his bike which is one of the actual 750cc production bikes that Dunstall had entered in the TT in the mid-sixties.

Interesting how these bikes end up getting all around the world back and forth over the years.

'Interesting how these bikes end up getting all around the world back and forth over the years.'

What is really great is that some people recognise what they are , and their historical importance, and don't do the big number on them. In about 1962 Orrie Salter returned to Australia with a 500cc BMW Rennsport sidecar . He made the guys with 1000cc Vincents look silly at Phillip Island. The bike was supposed to be returned to the factory, however it stayed here. When one of our champions died, the bike was sold to a guy in Queensland who is converting it into a solo. I believe road race sidecars are a waste of space , but if you got your hands on something so genuine, surely you would have to preserve and race it ? I believe that some people would touch up the Monsa Lisa to make it more beautiful.- This guy is painting a whole new body.
These days when I see guys tampering with manx nortons, I usually point out the intrinsic value of the bike. It is not just 'what you can get when you sell it'. It is extremely rare to see a very original manx in Australia these days, and the opportunity to experience riding something so beautiful in its original form has been lost forever.

It is probably just me, I have probably been watching too many episodes of 'Antiques Road Show', but I believe a lot of people's values are fucked.

At least several years ago I had a shot at buying another one of the 1964 Dunstall Daytona racers which was very complete with it's original exhaust in a box and matching numbers, but I did not have the $13K the guy wanted for it. He took it to an auction and got his money. I have not seen hide nor hair of the bike since but am hoping it ended up in good hands.

Dunstall Dominators are not common, especially ones that have not been through some sort of poor restoration mill, but existing original Dunstall-built road racers could probably be counted on one hand. They were "works" or team bikes only for use by Dunstall's riders. Anyone could take a Dunstall street bike and race it, but I am talking about the purpose-built road racers built up from left-over Domiracer parts, or the specially prepared Atlas bikes used in the production TT, and then there is the Drainpipe-framed Atlas racer. Later on Dunstall messed with Commandos and Jap bikes, but the period of history that seems to be clamored over is the Dominator/Domiracer days.

A fellow I know not too far away has an original Dunstall Atlas with a few odd options. The bike is original and a bit oxidized here and there but it has disk brakes on the front, primitive ones not the ones with the cast-in sliders, and it was also supplied new with Gardner racing flat-slide carbs. An odd bike.

I wonder whatever happened to Dunstalls first racer, that Model 99 he started out on, if he or someone else saved it or at least has it in some incarnation.