Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

. Only ~~~~~;;:=== produtwo ho urs before Our r d f irm ' ce Or raced at this ti P ess deadline, We talk . new ~ sUPPOrt of the Myst::: e . J~st prior to the AFed WIth Craig Vetter a -When ~~~rs weren't interesie~7:,P pr~ject due to ~~~durance race, the":e:arned that the Myster . without the~r:~~rVet~er Fairing, h:~~/~g t~at !1lotorcYC~~a~~u:~ arrange,ment b~';';:~s~ V~tter Fairrn~~t~~" not be ycle desIgns Th ,~ . e Mystery Ship the etter explained n . ralg Craig V re~ the _io~v.a•..•.•Eiidiiiiito.r•. • • •~:wi':t~h.,.t.a~/~I~h~i:S~m:o:t:o:rc;e:tr~a:c:k~.':a:v:e:r:y:disaPPOlOted andcannot bepany. The produced Com Vetter bike unveiled By Rex Reese Craig Vetter unveiled his long-awaited "Mystery Ship ," a moto rcycle h e describes as the bike of the future, at W illow Springs Racewa y for initial testing p rior to its entry in the AFM O n Any Sunday II Ontario 6·Hour road race . The bike touched asphalt for the first time in its . life not far from where NASA re~ealed th e Space S~uttle , the space sh~p of the f~lture, In Pa lmda le 2? 14 miles away. Like the shuttle, Vetter s Mystery Ship, as it is called for now, will be very expe,:,sive and only a hand~ul of people wJ11 be lucky enough to fly It. " I consider it to be the crowning achievement of my motorcycling career," said Vetter. "The Mystery Ship is everything a sport motorcycle ought to be. To me, it's the way motorcycles a re likely to look 10 years from now ... It's withou t a doubt the best thing I've ever done. " As it is, the machine is the latest step in Vet ter's ca reer which began with the creation of his now-famous tour fairings, and will "hopefully someday" culminate in the design and creation of a complete motorcycle from the ground up . The cobby-Iooking but fu turistic prototype is based upon Vetter's Superbike Championshipwin~ing Kawasaki 1 ~OO with a modified frame , race-built motor and running gear topped off with specially. des igned fiberglass bodywork which integrates the fairing , fuel tank cover and seat into one continuous , aerodvnamic unit. In comparing the Mystery Ship to the BSA/ T riu m p h Hurricane he had designed in the late sixties, Vetter said , "Even though it is a bigger, longer, more comprehensive body, it's not a straight line; it 's still angular. It starts out hig h in front, then down at the lowest point where the rider sits and then goes back up again in the rear. It's streamlined but angular. It has a number of devices that stopinterrupt-and-stop your eye and make you titillated by its details and workings . The Mystery Ship is designed to make the mechanics pop out even more than they do on a standard Kawasaki . They do it with a very carefully planned juxtaposition of sculptural shapes and exposed mechanical com ponen ts." The bik e, whi ch h a s been in development for th e past 18 months , had not seen the light of day in on e piece prior to its debut and testing at Willow where it was given a summary wringing out by Vetter rider Keith Code who will co -ride it in the Six Hour with teammate , current AMA Superbike champ Reg Pridmore. The bodywork arrived at the track in a pickup with the rolling chassis coming a few minutes later in the Vetter racing van. Since the two had never met before, the Vetter racing crew , including tuner Pierre des Roches , Duane Auscherman and Steve Posson spent a couple of ho urs making all the fiberglass .p ieces fit each other , then making all of them fit onto the rest of the bike. A bizarrely-shaped al uminum fuel tank, contou red to fit u nderneat h the bodywork , was first slipped on . With that in place, the crew then had to cut holes in to the virgin fiberglass for access to the fuel filler and vent line. The bod y's main section was later mounted with the nosepiece attac hed last. Once underway on the track, a few hot laps by Code later brought up the possibility of cutting away part of the body to accommodate Code's shins, which continually bumped against the pointed lower edge of the fairing/ lower body area . The decision to make that cut was temporarily shelved when it was determined that a pair of foot pegs set further back could be fabricated . Also discovered in the process was th e fact that a hole had to be cut to service the engine's oil filler. Runs were made with and without a windscreen in attempts to see how th e bike handled on the track and how aerodynamically sound the overall design was . Vetter expressed some concern over the windscreen which prompted the comparison runs . The screen was thought to be too thin to stand up to 120 mph speeds going down Willow's front straight; then maybe it was too high. The screen will remain but was cut down a tad for Ontario. The only problem that did crop up during the tests was a slight wobble reported by Code and la ter confirmed by des Roches when he took to the track . The wobb le , it see med, occ urred as t he ship went down the straight. After muc h disc ussion and concern over where the problem was and how it would be corrected, a sma ll air da m was taped u nder the nose in front of th e air scoop on the body. That 'a ppa rently fixed it . Power wasn't of major concern during the test beca use that was something the team had already licked . in the dyno room and on the track . The Mystery Ship was tested with the

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