Peter Williams

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acotrel said:
Nothing to do with 'benefit of hindsight', how many times have you seen this stuff repeated ? I've personally .

Quite a lot from you, actually ?
That 40/40 hindsight from you works overtime here... !

But Mr Williams ain't wallowing in nostalgia though, he's bringing the monocoque version of the Norton to market.
A few decades too late maybe though, although enthusiasts are more cashed up these days.
Maybe he should have teamed up with Mr Garner, and put a newer engine in it ??
Could still happen, of course...
 
He did team up with Garner, The relationship didn't last very long at all. Come to think of it nor did Garner's relationship with Brian Crighton the rotary guru, or that Italian bloke that had something to do with Ducati. What is the common denominator here?
 
What stuffed Nortons was years of mismanagement. Years of neglect at Bracebridge St enabled the takeover by AMC. Years of apathy at AMC by people like Donald Heather forced the sale to Dennis Poore. Finally it took the Government to force Poore into buying BSA/Triumph, then having the Meriden Triumph "Co-op" fiasco forcing the new NVT to remanufacture all tooling for the triples, then the government withdrawing the promised money for the takeover. The financial genius' (later to become the self styled "Masters of the Universe") in the City couldn't see any value in an engineering company, let alone a motorcycle engineering company. So the whole thing went bust effectively.
I have worked in both the UK and Australia, generally in defence related industries, I reckon that the Governments of both countries are to blame for making short term decisions which positively affect their popularity, rather than the long term decisions which engineering companies demand.

Regarding the Cosworth and PW. In his book PW is very critical of the Cosworth (too big and heavy principally). The engine design was subject to many changes of responsibility....originally Cosworth were to design the cylinder head only, based on the F1 DFV engine, then the responsibility stretched to the crankcase, then to include the gearbox. So it was not a happy project.
cheers
wakeup
 
wakeup said:
Regarding the Cosworth and PW. In his book PW is very critical of the Cosworth (too big and heavy principally). The engine design was subject to many changes of responsibility....originally Cosworth were to design the cylinder head only, based on the F1 DFV engine, then the responsibility stretched to the crankcase, then to include the gearbox.

Roadbike engines that are to be race engines, or vice versa, don't generally have a happy ending to the story.
Trying to be everything to everyone doesn't usually work too well...
 
gripper said:
What is the common denominator here?

Lack of money ?? !!

Nortons have always been a shoestring operation - must be getting past the 8th or 9th insolvency/bunkruptcy/firesale by now.
About every 12th or 13th year, when you start pencilling dates on the back of an envelope.
Guess thats the hazard of small scale manufacturing.
With a few wars and depressions and sales slumps thrown in for good measure.

Q. How do you make a small fortune out of motorcycle manufacturing ?
A. Invest a large fortune in it...
 
Why don't Ducati have the same problems that Norton did in the 80s ?

'Q. How do you make a small fortune out of motorcycle manufacturing ?
A. Invest a large fortune in it...'

Do you believe Mr Honda would agree ?
 
acotrel said:
Why don't Ducati have the same problems that Norton did in the 80s ?
Do you believe Mr Honda would agree ?

Maybe you don't know your motorcycle history ?

How many owners have Duc had in the past 50 years ??
How many of them made $$$ ?
The Castiglioni Brothers invested - and lost - how much ???

Totally different scenario - Mr Honda didn't invest his personal fortune in motorcycle making, he MADE a fortune in it.
Not responsible to the shareholders either, so could spend where its needed, or not, as required.
Mr Marx's business model doesn't cover motorcycle making too well ??

Name a motorcycle maker in the western world that hasn't had a buyout or financial restructure or 10 in their history ?
With 200+ motorcycle makers in China these days, look for a few future world leaders in their formative stages. ??

P.S. Didn't HD recently dispose of their (recent) purchase of MV for a nominal $2.
Thats a pretty nominal sale price - and easy to figure out how much they lost... !
In fact, they paid the buyer some $millions !!!
 
" What stuffed Nortons was years of mismanagement. "

1973 Oil Crisis The substantial price increases of 1973–74 largely caught up their incomes to Bretton .... These target industrial governments included the United States, Great Britain, ...

. the New York Stock Exchange's Dow Jones Industrial Average benchmark lost ... From a position of 5.1% real GDP growth in 1972, the UK went into recession in ... terms until August 1993—over twenty years after the 1973–74 crash began.

But most of these sales were to the UK motor industry, which limped into the 1970s, bedevilled by strikes and falling competitiveness. The years 1973/74 were a nightmare, with the first oil price shock quadrupling oil prices while a three-day working week was introduced in Britain to save power when the miners went on strike. As GKN’s UK businesses struggled,. . . ..

However, after strikes and a highly publicized factory occupation in 1973, LIP ... 3 An experience in workers' self-management (1973-74); 4 End of the first conflict .... factory, to avoid any risk of the competition obtaining these industrial secrets.

--

LIP is a water company , though this could be talking about our NVT friends , strikeingly :oops: similar . Mustve been something in something , or another mega rich fleece the peasants attempt . or international industrial espionage , or financial .

James Bonds Doctor Thingo , attempting to take over the world , perhaps . Note : it took a few decades before the slump was behind . or is that it peaks out every few decades amoungst a decade of depression and disintegration .
Or did they just spend to much time at the pub . :P :lol:

Notwithstanding that . Cosworths dont have to bad a record , though every picture tells a story . Look at the faces in this . The Contractor & Contractee . :?

Peter Williams


Back to P.W.

Peter Williams


zillions of P.W. / Monocoque pictures HERE : http://www.italian.sakura.ne.jp/bad_toy ... #Monocoque thanking the provider severally .
 
Actually , looking at the Poore / Duckworth picture , theres young Doug. lurking in the background . Seems giving the chap the third degree might purloin some usefull insights into the device at that stage ?

Also MAGAZINES cant quite get a two hour diatribe / interview onto a few pages , letalone a balanced perspective on a project of years of work , easilly . So takeing flipant off handers as inciseive gospel might be missleading .
Often considering them as considered opinions from the individuals perspective is more enlightening and balanced , allowing there massive ommisions in the true and total tale . Infinate monkeys & typewriters , etc .
 
I suggest the major factor which caused the failure of motorcycle manufacturing has been safety. In one of our Melbourne hospitals there is a ward for injured motorcyclists. Pre 1960, both in the UK and Australia motorcycles were used as cheap transport. In later years our roads have become very congested with other vehicles, and the official slant on safety is that 'speed kills'. That doesn't take into account the competence factor, and it is revenue driven. Anybody who rides a motorcycle on our public roads obviously has only a very temporary existence due to the incompetence of the car drivers. I suggest that has a major effect on the size of the customer base of bike manufacturers. We don't manufacture motorcycles in Australia, and there is no basis for it in our motorcycle racing - the whole ethos has become to buy the throw away imported item - no constructors' classes . And even if there was provision for that, we still would not have the customer base to support the industry. We have a problem which lies in lack of appreciation of the value of motorcycling by the authorities, - and years ago there was even a concerted effort to force motorcycles off our roads. It would be interesting to see the statistics of car drivers who are killed in crashes, who also hold a bike licence. I suggest the survival rate would be much higher for that sub-group.
 
Its like a mine field out there for cyclers, over sights of thier own to over sights by others and animals to road hazards. They report the dead ones about daily here, about half the riders fault the other half not. I know I have to talk myself out of applying real proof logic to risk leaving home, but at least I know I have to talk myself into the illogical dangerous activity after seeing and smelling the dead bodies on my paths. Sometimes the devil in me loses to mothers wisdom.
I try to ride some of each ride like it was my last. Steve'r

I make a living on spinal injury, leaving saddles of horses and motorcycles top the list ... these images are hard on the psyche to squash enough to go on.

https://www.google.com/search?q=motorcy ... 40&bih=340
 
acotrel said:
I suggest the major factor which caused the failure of motorcycle manufacturing has been

That depends on what you mean by "failure". ?
Motorcycles are absolutely booming now, like they never have before....

All the successful motorcycle makers are churning out little commuter bikes by the gazillions.
All the BIG makers have known this for near a century or more ?
Villiers made tens of thousands (of engines) for this market, and BSA* made more Bantams than all their other models combined.
Motobecane*, Yamaha* and Honda* have all followed suit.
* at various times, considered the worlds largest motorcycle manufacturer.
Some of the current Chinese manufacturers are on track to follow in these footsteps, Loncin Lifan and Zongshen in particular ?
Already they make more bikes than the entire Japanese industy...

Its only when makers turn away from the commuter market and head down the rocky path of 'sports bikes' that their
financial wellbeing is too closely linked to the fickle market of leisure bikes that makers have problems ??
And electric bikes are coming on in leaps and bounds, like it or not...
 
Matt talked about the dire times in the UK in the early 70s. I was there and one or two things spring to mind, sorry for going OT.

1/ At one time I was a draftsman working for the Government. We were subject to routine power cuts. So the administrators dreamed up the following solution. If you worked at a desk (not a draftsman) you got one candle, but if you were a draftsman you got TWO candles....luxury! This was during the winter when its dark before 8.30ish a.m. and after 3.30ish p.m. and pretty gloomy when its "daylight". To get a new candle you had to produce the dead stump of the old one.
2/ At the same place the heating medium was oil. The establishment had a monthly oil allocation. This allocation normally sufficed, but during a cold winter things could get tricky. One year the oil ran out with about 10 days to go. Uninsulated buildings require a lot of heat. At one stage I was standing at my drawing board, with a lit candle at each end of the parallel motion drawing board, with my lined motorcycle jacket and overtrousers on, welly boots with sea boot socks. The inside air temperature at the end of the working day was about 40 degrees F
3/ An earlier job was at a shipyard in Southampton, during the enforced 3 day week. That was really hard going.

Sometimes I wonder why we came to Australia, then I think about working and living in England in the 70s.

cheers
wakeup
 
wakeup said:
Matt talked about the dire times in the UK in the early 70s. I was there and one or two things spring to mind, sorry for going OT.

Sometimes I wonder why we came to Australia, then I think about working and living in England in the 70s.

cheers
wakeup

Oliver Twist comes to mind.
"Please Sir, I want some more."
 
Wakeup, I once worked in a factory which supplied it's staff with mugs which had the company logo. To get a new one after the initial issue, you had to take the broken one back to the store. A friend of mine had the handle off one, and used to keep it after getting a new mug. I still have one of those mugs in my cupboard. 'Some things are so bad, that they are good' ?
 
acotrel said:
I don't know what you could use it for other than posing on Sundays,

Oddly enough, thats what a LOT of leisure bikes are sold for ?!
You give the impression you don't ride bikes on the road ?

If you go to India, you see a lot (of families !) commuting around.
All the Sikhs ride them - turbans and all.
Are they the only riders in that market ?
 
wakeup said:
1/ At one time I was a draftsman working for the Government. We were subject to routine power cuts. So the administrators dreamed up the following solution. If you worked at a desk (not a draftsman) you got one candle, but if you were a draftsman you got TWO candles....luxury! This was during the winter when its dark before 8.30ish a.m. and after 3.30ish p.m. and pretty gloomy when its "daylight". To get a new candle you had to produce the dead stump of the old one.

"Luxury !
I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah. "

" And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you."

All Credits to Monthy Python....
 
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