JPN Monocoque Specs

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lcrken said:
pommie john said:
I rode a 72 JPN and it certainly had those mods, but it was a replica, not an original bike so I guess the mods could have been retro fitted

It was the one owned by Joaquin Folch, the Barcelona collector. He had the original Williams TT winning bike restored from what was left of the chassis (made into a lamp for Peter after the crash) and a spare engine by P&M. There's more detail in the article, and I'll post the rest of it soon. Ken
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So, with the JPN of Dave Coxford and Peter Williams both turned into a lamp there were 2 bikes that ended up like this :?:
 
Hi Bernard

No Just Daves. Richard did an amazing job to rebuild that frame.

Chris
 
Bernhard said:
Anybody know what Dave Coxford did with his lamp :?:
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Reading the above, put it into his front room until someone made him a better offer.....

From memory of the period it was only ever Dave Croxford that had a frame he had trashed given to him as a lamp...remember it in MCN...with a plaque something like '8 weeks to make, 8 seconds to wreck'
 
acotrel said:
The stuff about the wind-cheating aspects of the Monocoque is interesting. It is amazing the way a bike rolls further when you back off and you need more brakes, after you have fitted a fairing to your normally unfaired bike. When PW raced the 76 BHP Monocoque, weren't his opposition riding 100 BHP TZ750s ? His big win was in the wet and that is understandable, however in other situations he was still up with them - I find that surprising.
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What gives you the idea that the race was run in the wet?

Far from it, race conditions were excellent weather wise as I well remember, so this makes Peter's win an even more outstanding achievement from every possible view point.

An interesting aspect of Peter Williams work to develop the JPN Commando is to compare his remit with the restrictions imposed on his father many years before when given the task of further developing the AJS 7R.
 
From the little I have read about Peter Williams, I think one of his more notable wins was in the wet. Under those conditions a commando-based bike has a distinct advantage. When it rains, we are all back to square one and how the bike puts it's power down is very important. There appears to be two distinct types of bike in road racing - the Ducati on which Hailwood made his successful comeback on the IOM, seems to have been slow handling and it's advantage was probably in the way it handled the high speed bumpy stuff rather than in short high speed blasts.
 
acotrel said:
From the little I have read about Peter Williams, I think one of his more notable wins was in the wet. Under those conditions a commando-based bike has a distinct advantage.
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This seems to contradict: "distinct advantage", "notable wins". What is so notable when one has a distinct advantage. Just trying to understand your perspective.
 
acotrel said:
From the little I have read about Peter Williams, I think one of his more notable wins was in the wet. Under those conditions a commando-based bike has a distinct advantage. When it rains, we are all back to square one and how the bike puts it's power down is very important. There appears to be two distinct types of bike in road racing - the Ducati on which Hailwood made his successful comeback on the IOM, seems to have been slow handling and it's advantage was probably in the way it handled the high speed bumpy stuff rather than in short high speed blasts.
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So why did Hailwood win on the same bike at Mallory Park?
 
Any time a commando=based bike beats Japanese two strokes is a 'notable win'. If you think otherwise you are probably delusional.

Hailwood's main advantage at Mallory with the Ducati was when he rode around the others on that very high speed curve. I suggest it wasn't his bike's acceleration but it's stable handling that got him to the front. Most of the earlier Ducati twins had large rake which increased the stability, so riders could ride faster and go around other competitors. When you relax as you ride them their natural tendency is to run slightly wide coming out of corners. . I suspect the JPN Monocoque would tend to slightly widen it's line, if left to it's own devices. Mostly with my bike, I choose to go under other riders - it is safer. My bike tightens it's line in corners when you gas it. You would not want my bike on the IOM, it would require too much concentration. It's the difference between a short circuit bike and a long circuit bike. I was told years ago that a short wheel-base bike is better on a large circuit and vice-versa - I don't believe that - it is not the wheel-base alone, but the steering geometry.
 
I followed PWs racing career from when he won the 250 class of the 500 mile Proddie race in the mid 60s. I also saw the race at Silverstone when he ran out of petrol. We were sat at Woodcote, which at that time was (I've been told by someone who raced there) a 125mph corner if you had the intestinal fortitude. To see PW drifting and making up metres and metres on Agostini was gobsmacking. At least my memory tells me that it was Ago, on the works MV500/3, but I cannot think what race class that would have been. So maybe it was somebody else??
Anyway, apart from the IOM F750 win, which was magnificent, I would put that Silverstone ride as PWs best.
Incidentally, it was in the same race that Croxford fell off at Woodcote and produced the wreckage which became a lamp. Somewhere I have a photo of the remains.
cheers
wakeup
 
I look at PW in that video I posted and think what a tragedy his crash was. A lot of it was probably due to racing bikes which were inherently uncompetitive. There is only so far you can stick your neck out. If you think about where he would have had advantage with the Monocoque, his cornering speeds must have been horrendous.
 
acotrel said:
Hailwood's main advantage at Mallory with the Ducati was when he rode around the others on that very high speed curve.
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In the video of the event I have seen that isn't quite what happened, though doubtless he did have good cornerspeed at Gerrards which consolodated his gains, but when the hit the straight Read (until he dropped back) and Cowie on 1000cc machines pulled several lengths away, Mike took a very deep entry to the Esses and gained a huge amount of ground there and up towards Shawes, where he made most of his passes in the early part of the race from a relatively poor start... It looks like he could only use the deep entry that others didn't try because he could manage the right left flick very late into the bend, for which he would have needed superior corner speed and quick steering! It seems the way to maintain speed through a lap on a tight circuit is not to scrub it off when you can avoid it!

I suspect the combination of rider talent allied with frame design and geometry, low CofG, engine configuration and good mid range power won the day.

Probably the same reasons several Nortons went fairly well at this venue over the years.
 
I suggest that rider ability might be subject to the law of diminishing returns - there is only so much that a human being can do. If the bike really suits the circuit, perhaps it is irrelevant whether it is Hailwood, Surtees, Redman or Ago riding it ? I believe that what PW was doing with Nortons was highly dangerous - he was moving into unknown territory with a company which did not have it's head in the right place.
 
acotrel said:
I suggest that rider ability might be subject to the law of diminishing returns - there is only so much that a human being can do. If the bike really suits the circuit, perhaps it is irrelevant whether it is Hailwood, Surtees, Redman or Ago riding it ? I believe that what PW was doing with Nortons was highly dangerous - he was moving into unknown territory with a company which did not have it's head in the right place.
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PW lead that himself. He was the vanguard!

His crash was a result of failure, the tank / seat u it became detached from the bike... And him with it!
 
I have long known the reason for PW's crash - a minor oversight ? The ISO 9000 definition of quality is 'fit for purpose' - however a better definition is 'fit for purpose WITH OBVIOUS ATTENTION TO DETAIL'. Think about what PW was working with and the culture within Norton at the time. When you watch someone such as Hailwood race seriously, you see extreme rider competence backed by a team which is extremely particular about every detail. PW's accident probably had to happen. What did Norton lose that they had not lost already ?
 
Many years ago I was involved in helping Hailwood have a ride on Dunster's Manx at an historic meeting in Victoria. the bike was as fast as a reasonably decent Manx ever is. The difference was rider competence - naturally Hailwood won, just as Surtees did when he raced against all our fast guys at Amaroo for the same reason. There is no super-genius risk-taking - just smoothness and application.
 
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