Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

it better, so I decided to have a go at building it." That bath-time brainwave came in August 1991. Eight months later, Andy snaked the ASP onto the streets in a highly unofficial road test that proved his ideas had point as well as purpose. Two seasons of racing the EXUPengined bike himself on British circuits refined it into a trick piece of hardware that really worked - though it was almost accidentally that he discovered just how well. "Stuart Jones is one of Britain's top national-class riders, with literally hundreds of race wins to his credit," Stevenson says. "He also tunes a mean Yamaha motor, and when my own engine blew up he lent me one of his to finish the season with. I repaid the favor by lending him the ASP for a race meeting at Aintree, his local track. On his 12thever lap aboard the bike, he broke his own outright circuit lap record, set with the same engine in a stock Yamaha frame. After cleaning up in the day's races, he came home, picked up the phone, and ordered a chassis from me. That's how the ASP2 came about." Developing a mark II version of his radical chassis concept allowed Stevenson to rethink some compromises he'd been forced to adopt the first time around, and to evolve a more rational design which in tum will form the basis of ife forthcoming ASP street bike he aims to put into production later this year. It's a long way from building a bathtime brainwave to becoming a fully fledged motorcycle manufacturer, but Andy Stevenson is a determin.ed individual, whose belief in his own ideas was reinforced by the positive feedback from everyone who's ever ridden his bikes. ,;It ounds like I'm gilding the lily, but nobody was ever negative about either ASP after riding th~," he says. "There were always suggestions about how to improve them, which is inevitable. Honda are always updating their designs, so why shouJd.n't I? But the message that kept coming through was that people wanted to see a street version. I knew if I didn't do something about it, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. So my wife Katharine and I talked it over, and decided to go for it, together with my elder brother Jon. We applied for a European innovation grant from the EU in Brussels which repays 50 percent of our prototype-development costs - and got it. Together with a British government Enterprise Zone subsidy aimed at regenerating industry in the former coal-mining area we live in, this was enough to make the project viable when coupled with our own cash resources up to the point when we're ready to start production and can take cash deposits." Stevenson says that moment is less than a year away. Since the financial basis of the ASP Motorcycle Company was assured, things have started to move very quickly. The two Stevenson brothers now own a 1500-sq.-ft. factory, with sufficient space for batch manUfacture of up to 10 ASP street bikes at a time, the prototype of which is already complete in rolling-chassis form, awaiting bodywork. Testing is due to start in June, with production beginning next winter for delivery of the first batch of 10 street bikes in May 1998. Technology speaks for itself, but it needs styling to sell it to the public at large, and the ASP roadster's smooth lines have already been finalized, cour- (Left) The 125-bhp VZF750 engine Is • fully stressed chassis member. (Below) The man behind the blke Is the man behind the bike: Andy Stsvenson. Stevenson's road version ofthe ASP is due In 1998. (Below) This cutaway drawing by street bike stylist Scott MacFarlane Is the original EXUP-engined ASP road racer. tesy of technical illustrator Scott MacFarlane in his bike-design debut. "I'm only interested in building a high-quality, tailor-made product for customers who want something avantgarde but effective, hand built to the highest standards," Stevenson says. "Our bikes won't be cheap - target selling price is 20,000 pounds (about $33,000) tax free ex-factory with a new Yamaha Thunderace motor - but there'll be nothing else like them on the street in terms of quality of manufacture, excellence of handling and distinctive appearance. The bodywork especially will be built to a far higher standard than anything else, thanks to a flew manuJacturing process' I'm having patented. We couldn't ever hope to match Bimota's volume, but we are aiming to surpass their standards of quality." . The fact that Yamaha UK has agreed to supply ASP with engines underlines the commitment to excellence the company has succeeded in convincing others it possesses - emphasized by the fact that, according to Stevenson, every single chassis part on the street ASP apart from the lights, wheels, brakes and tires will be purpose-built, rather than bor-' rowed from someone else's parts bin, as was inevitably the case with the road racer prototypes. Instruments will be digital products of the British race-car industry, apart from a custom-made analogue tachometer which will have a shift light rather than a redline, in keeping with best HRC / Aprilia GP practice. Apart from improved breathing due to a specially designed airbox and Seot. tish-built Muller Teknik exhaust system tha t's expected to yield around 5 percent extra performance - just as similar modifications to the same engine do 01). the Bimota YBll- ASP will fit the Yamaha Thunderace engines in unmodified form. In terms of chassis layout and detail execution, .Stevenson says the street ASP will follow broadly the same design as his second prototype, using the slantblock engine as a fully stressed member, to which the pair of triple-box-section extruded-alloy swingarms will be bolted with chassis subframes. . Special Maxton shocks built by suspension guru Ron Williams - architect of so many Isle of Man TT victories for Joey Dunlop and th~ Honda works team, then later for the rotary Norton equipe - will be used, though rather surprisingly there won't be any linkage for the rear suspension. Instead the shock will be mounted in a horizontal position above the gearbox, operated by a cantilever arm off the top of the swingarm. "It's heavy, complicated, expensive and unnecessary," Stevenson says of a linkage system. "We ran a dead-straight, linear 2:1 linkage on the ASP2, and Ron says a rising-rate Unkage only confuses the shock. He figures to get much better response out of internal shock design." . Complimenting the Maxton shocks will be an array of other top-grade British components. The ASP street bike will use Saxon -bolt-up composite wheels, with magnesium centers and spun-ailoy rims (though carbon rims are available as an option where homologation permits), fitted with Dunlop 0364 tires, PPM cast-iron discs (32Omm fronts and a 220mm rear) and Harrison Billet-6 ASP2 Eagine . Uquid-cooled DOHC 20,valve in-line four-eylinder four·stroke ..................................................................72x46nm DI.pllle .. _It .........•................... , 0aIput eoo",III'DJftndlo _ ......•.....•...•...• _ e..twJ 748cc 125 bhp at 12.800 rpm

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