Peter Williams

In the latest Classic Racer magazine there is an article about the Anglo-American Match Races 1973 which mentions Peter William's efforts on the JPN. I find it incredible that he was even within sight of the leaders considering what they were riding.
'but two stunning victories from Peter Williams gave the British team a last gasp victory by just 18 points, after some of the best racing the large crowds have seen in a long time'

Our boy was certainly no slouch ?

Peter Williams had campaigned that Arter Matchless for a few years prior to this - 500cc Matchless sohc G50 racer, with full fairing and 'wheelbarrow' wheels (mag wheels) - and done surprisingly well on it. So was used to riding machinery that wasn't quite competitive with the opposition - cunning and courage will always beat brute force ?!

Rather the usual story for british racing and racers really, when you look at the full picture back then, for quite some decades. That was even said about british aero engines in WW2, when the opposition had far bigger and stronger engines - and far more numerous as well. But somehow our boys pulled through - ta ra ta ra !!
But don't mention the war....

A monument to what determination can achieve: A talented rider, development engineer and underdog: put those in order of priority! He ticked all those boxes and the JPN effort would have been a lot less without him still waving the flag against the odds. Your hat just can't stay on your head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-SOXVVdIZ4
Video of Peter Williams in 1973 posted by his son, Paul.

The Japanese Power Outputs were always grossly exaggerated , the things weighed 5000 tonnes ( :wink: ) Metric ! and handled like a pregnant cow .

Raybornes XR 750 just sold for $ 175. 000 . This beat the lot , when the atmosperics suited .



" However, in England's cooler climate the incomparable Cal Rayborn showed that it had the legs of the home grown opposition on the short circuits used for the 1972 Anglo-American Match Race Series "



SEEING as the ' Formular 750 'was for PRODUCTION based ' Racers ' , Not Prodution RACERS , as Yamaha missiterpreted the rules , ( and the A.M.A. ( anything for a buck )) for the TZ700 ,
after all the mugs had bought them , the F.I.M. had to reinstate the trash , AFTER they were BANNED in Europe from F 750 , as they were NOT ' production ( road ) machined based . As Per REGULATIONS .

DamnPolitics .

Sheens , Smarts , Reads and most other rice burners ran SEELY frames , oldani / ceriani suspension , and Fontana brakes . Or were otherwise seldom ' ex factory ' spec .
And other than in Aus, ( and that was much later ) the water cooled HR Kwackers were unreliable Sh*t boxes . AND highly dubious road holding .

Considering NORTON should have had the water cooled twin cam four valve Cosworth operational for 1975 , if they wernt sabotaged by the two faced pinko left wing retard Govt ,
who ' Changed their minds more often than the Wind ' , the high & mighty oriental industrial espionage of the automotive industry might not have come off .
amazeing what a few bribes will do .

As the Apprilla RSV4 is a Lombardi design , other than the P86 being a bit of a cock up , it diproves a Auotomotive engineers incapeable of designing a motorcycle .
Unfortunately , I dont see how a bunch of english schoolboys think they can design a superior V4 to that . Though Id be haveing a damn good shot at a superior TWIN.



This Thing was obviously a darn sight more evolved mechanically than the wriggly diggly whizz bangs , or any 4 stoke the asians perpetrated at that time , being 1975 .

Though Maybe they should have called it P-99 , rather than P-86 . :? :lol:

AND , if Thats not Good enough for you , it won 11 Chapionship Races in 73 , and couldve got more , barring dud pitmen .

ALSO .


" And on July 21, 1973, Aldana won the Ascot TT in Gardena, California, on that machine. It marked the first major U.S. victory for Norton since the Grand National Series was founded in 1954. "

http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/asp/cla ... .asp?id=51

The PRESS were saying the Commando engine was obsolette & archaic When it was LAUNCHED . probly to many wines at lunch . the press NEVER gets anything Completely Right . EVER .

The Ring dings ad better press & marketing , but industrial sabotage was involved . As for worn out tooling ? it looked like the WORKFORCE was worn out at Norton , in the picture of the shut down ,
all the blokes are old enough to have seen the depression & WWII , so may have been a bit of par as far as being hot , onto it chargers .

Matt Spencer said:

The Japanese Power Outputs were always grossly exaggerated , the things weighed 5000 tonnes ( :wink: ) Metric ! and handled like a pregnant cow .

Click to expand...

Sure they did,not that that had much to do with Peter Williams.
No doubt if not for the accident he would have gone on to be a formidable force on bikes like the TZ 350 / 750 as others did coming out of the 1960's into what turned out to be a whole new ball game.
Many of course fell along the wayside, the transition to much.

Yes, indeed, the production machinery was worn out (particularly for the engines). There's a story from the merger of Norton into AMC, which moved Norton production from Birmingham (Bracebridge Street) to London (Plumstead). Many of the older Norton guys chose a "silver" handshake rather than relocate to the much more expensive location.

There was a four-spindle machine that drilled out and tapped the cylinder hold-down threads in the crankcase castings. There hadn't been a problem with accuracy at Bracebridge, but at Plumstead, they were rejecting about 40% of the crankcases because the holes were in the wrong place by up to 3/16". Eventually, someone from Plumstead went to Birmngham to ask the old guy that had run the machine there what the problem might be. He said "Did they take my piece of wood with them?" The Plumstead guy had no idea wht he meant. The retiree explained that the bearings in which the multi-spindle head moved up and down were so badly worn that he used a length of 2 x 4 lumber and levered the spindle hard over to one side of the sloppy bearings. He had actually modified the tooling to follow this technique.

I think Plumstead facilites folks put new bearings in the machine - problem solved. I'm sure there were a lot of similar problems caused by badly maintained old machinery. The company was in pretty dire straits at the time of the merger and the Manganese Bronze buy out didn't really make things much better. When I was there, it was still teetering on the edge of oblivion. That's why i bailed out and emigrated to the US. So much of UK small engineering and manufaturing were in similarly sorry shape. Both companies I worked for after I graduated from college went under witin a few years. One was Wickman Machine Tools, the other was N-V.

Of course, it wasn't just the UK that had the problems. Boeing reduced its workforce from 103,000 when I joined in 1968 to around 35,000 in 1971, which was when I got laid off. I landed a job with a contractor at NASA-Langley in Virginia, then went back to Boeing three years later. I finally took ealry retirement in 1998 at age 57, having got fed up with the excessive amoutn of overseas travel. My last year there, I spent 29 weeks overseas, mostly in the Islamic world, and none of the trips was longer than 10 days. A week in Jeddah during Ramadan is cruel and unusual punishment. i had over 600,000 frequent flier miles, spread over about 10 different airlines, when I bagged it.

Hardly production based though , and seeing Williams was a stalwart of the British industry , and a engineer ,
a position as a jockey for the Japs was likeley untenable . My point being more that the whole concept of F-750
was Hi jacked .

It was originally concieved as a proveing ground for manufacturers products , Not the development of grand Prix type machines .

And Yes , no doubt , Williams was a ' on the limit ' rider, and one of the best . Like Sheene the imperfect nature of the game had its cost .
Top Level raceing shouldnt necesarilly be a gladiatorial battle to the end / death . Though Williams big prang was said to be klutz mechanic derived .

What was ' addapted ' more , was the Chassis & Suspension of the rice burners to avert Their suicideal tendancys . never mind the rider .

This Sucker IS Production Based .


No One ever quite adapted to the TZ for Flat Tracking , and it wasnt a matter of balls , either .
As the P-86 was inteeded for production AS a Road Bike , it also was ' production derived ' in design , even if it never came together .

Suzuki got into all sorts of strife with their 3 cylinder water cooled monstrosity when they used some funny castings...not production castings, and tried to race them in F750. I'm not to sure how the Yamaha 750/4 could be considered as "production" based!
Obviously the 750 Commando based F750 racer was on its last legs, enginewise, which is why Nortons tried to do something with the Cosworth. After all the 750 Norton engine was always viewed as a stop gap measure. In his book, PW is very critical of the Cosworth, although it was certainly intended for production. They did eventually get it going well, but not under Norton colours.
I remember seeing PW riding his G50 Wagon Wheels at several English circuits (Brands Hatch, Thruxton, Silverstone, Mallory Park) he was very fast and smooth. He was multiple British 500cc Champion, three times second in the Senior TT and (I think) two or three times runner up in the 500cc World Champs. In my mind there is no doubt that he was destined for even greater things until he had his terrible accident. Yes Matt, it was down to a mechanic that the seat/tank unit fell off.
cheers
wakeup

wakeup said:

I'm not to sure how the Yamaha 750/4 could be considered as "production" based!

I remember seeing PW riding his G50 Wagon Wheels at several English circuits (Brands Hatch, Thruxton, Silverstone, Mallory Park) he was very fast and smooth. He was multiple British 500cc Champion, three times second in the Senior TT and (I think) two or three times runner up in the 500cc World Champs. In my mind there is no doubt that he was destined for even greater things until he had his terrible accident. Yes Matt, it was down to a mechanic that the seat/tank unit fell off.
cheers
wakeup

Click to expand...

The F750 rules at the time were that at least 200 models were made, if my memory serves me correct. The TZ700 came first then the Tz750.
The G50 was certainly impressive, after being developed by Tom Arter and PW; nearly always finishing 2nd to Agostini on the 500 MV post 1968 in the British GP (at the IOM TT.)
This is still the only bike allowed to race in the Classic Bike 500 series with cast wheels.

Now, what could have been if those monocoque frames had gone into production 35 or 40 years ago. ?
A much truer to type JPN Replica, for starters.... ?

They did, we hear you reply, the H*nda Cub used them, they've sold 60+ million of them.
Only not in stainless steel, so eventually they'll need to supply another 60+ million of them to replace them all...

Regarding the performance of Japanese GP machinery, I recently had the priviledge to be a fellow judge with Phil Read and Giacomo Agostini at a classic concourse event in Bombay, India. Ago told me that when he moved to Yamaha he was surprised at the fact that his 500 cc GP Yamaha didn't put out any more power then his previous MV Augusta, but that it's lighter weight meant that everything from direction changes to braking was so much more effective.

Rohan said:

Now, what could have been if those monocoque frames had gone into production 35 or 40 years ago. ?
A much truer to type JPN Replica, for starters.... ?

They did, we hear you reply, the H*nda Cub used them, they've sold 60+ million of them.
Only not in stainless steel, so eventually they'll need to supply another 60+ million of them to replace them all...

Click to expand...

Not on the Honda production scale, but the Exactweld bike that Gary Noel rode to the European 250 championship was had a stainless steel frame and was bang on the 250 weight limit;

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=exa ... tedIndex=0

'Hardly production based though , and seeing Williams was a stalwart of the British industry , and a engineer ,
a position as a jockey for the Japs was likeley untenable . My point being more that the whole concept of F-750
was Hi jacked .

It was originally concieved as a proveing ground for manufacturers products , Not the development of grand Prix type machines .'

Matt, are good road bikes derived from racing machines or vice versa ?
I suggest the problem with F750 was that there were no limits placed on the type of technology permitted. Two strokes , water cooled and four cylinder bikes should have been banned right from the outset. Then development would have proceeded down a different , much less expensive path. Even a privateer would have been able to build his own motor and frame, and become competitive . Most of the 750cc two strokes in the late seventies turned out over 100BHP and had decent frames. If you believe the Nortons could have kept up even with massive funding and a different mindset, you are kidding yourself. (Unless they morphed into Desmosedicis or 750cc Patons).
I suggest the Norton 961, the newer Triumph twins, and the aircooled Ducatis offer an opportunity for sane racing based more on rider skill than outright power, and it would 'improve the breed'.

We all know of how things would/could turn out differently, with the benefit of hindsight :shock:

:roll: :twisted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... pyWzT7DZeI :lol: :lol: 8) :wink:

Years ago. This is Daytona 1986 and the British-made Quantel, with its unique Cosworth-designed 820cc parallel-twin engine designed, like the Panigale, to be the structural core of the chassis; an engine that was actually designed in 1973 for an ailing Norton; an engine that was technically a quarter of the seminal V8 Cosworth DFV.

This bike was totally revolutionary in 1986, but it suffered from the typical underfunding that maverick independents are prone to, and from being too damned unusual and borderline-heretical (because the motorcycle industry is far more conservative than we think it is. There’s 3000 words on that). Nevertheless it went on to win at Daytona in 1988. If it looks slightly familiar then that’s probably because of its spiritual equivalent, the Britten.

:lol:

Credit : http://thisbikerslife.wordpress.com/201 ... -cosworth/

wondring if one of these olde cowes , at 975 , 32 carbs , gsxriceburnerwhite power oleos & current tyres /rims & brakes'd match the 130 whizz bang laps .With All the TRACK inmprovements,
and a current kamakazi top notch phyco scratcher maneyeack rider who knows his way around . The TT off course .


( the plot thickens , http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CDYQrQMwBA )

If 750s 80 Hp , 100cc is over 100 . ( which is about Ten Japanese H.P. , with their little poneys :wink: ) Theres always the 1007 Norton option . IF youd trust a Rider like that with it .

And WHAT Does the 961 do around the I.o.M. ? . still waiting with baited breath . The Tea appears to be cold . snap snap . somebody pull their finger out . We need a Benchmark , please .

P.S. , Willie boy on a Cosworth wouldve had to have been Super Phyco . If it was sorted - the honda boys wouldnt have got a look in , as he hosed them on the archaic 750 , when they remembered to put fuel in it .



some F F F F a r o u t pictures . HERE : http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt ... CEoQrQMwDw



We intend reintroduceing capital punishment for treason by politions , as a cost cutting measure , to save forking out their ludicrist pensions . :mrgreen: They did the Disorganiseing .

Bernhard,
'We all know of how things would/could turn out differently, with the benefit of hindsight '

Nothing to do with 'benefit of hindsight', how many times have you seen this stuff repeated ? I've personally worked in an engineering-based industry which was obviously managing itself towards extinction and it actually got there . At the time I had FORESIGHT and could do little to change things from inside the organization. If you are in that situation and really buck, you could end up wearing a straight jacket. What destroyed Norton was probably mostly the good old British class system - lack of democratic input which might have promoted continual improvement. And we have the same sort of authoritarian morons running things in many Australian companies. In Britain both sides of the industrial relations divide were stuffed in the head. It is all about politicians using social division for political gain - that promotes the environment (culture) where industries fail. I can only feel sorry for guys like Peter Williams, if they were Japanese or German they would be national heros.