Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127846
most mot or co rpo rations that race to wi n, the re was more behind the project than just the desire to put a third gold medal in the lobby trophy case . "I think they had bee n surp rised that the com petition d epartm ent had been ab le to pu t together a mac hine that had won two World Championships in ' 64 and '65:' explained Smi th , who worked closely wi th BSA race- team ma nager Bria n Mart in to claim the afore men tio ned 500cc World C hampionship ti tles . "T hey (th e BSA executives) increasingly go t behind the competition depar tme n t d ur ing those two years, especially in '65. Now they had beco me ve ry keen to prod u ce a m a chin e that wo uld ens ure th a t BSA woul d capture three world titles in succession. I'm sure it a lso became a marketing ploy to increase worldwide awa rene ss of the BSA bra nd ; and they a lso w anted to obtain usable information from the project that could be transferred into produd ion. And, in fact, many items from the 1966 period d id even tua lly ma ke it into prod ucti on ." Th en came the m atter of tit a niu m alloy and other trick parts. Toward thei r objective of crea ting the light est, fastest and best-performing 500cc mo tocross bike the planet had ever seen, the BSA enginee rs demanded that the machine be con st ructed w ith as much titanium, magnesium and aluminum as possible. Furt hermore, every mechanical variable a nd attribute relating to the bike was thought out in vivid detail. "W hen I sa t down a t th e first committee meeting, it became very obvious that the eng inee rs were loo king very far ahead:' Smith remembered. "They were talking about d isc brakes, which, at that time, were totall y unknown > certainly on off-road machines. Very few w ere ava ilable for street bikes and road race machines then. In fact, we had to reach all th e way to America to get the Airheart Com pa ny to provide us wi th disc bra kes. And with the discussion of titanium, which at tha t time we only knew as a material used in the aircraft industry and in certain military applications, it w as ve ry obvious tha t they w e re thinking far ahead of their time . Du ring that sa m e period , from October to March, they also redesigned the original 420cc Victor eng ine to m ake it a more powe rf u I 500cc . Th is was a lot of research and development that was supposed to.happen in a very short period. I. co ul d tell right away tha t they were very serious." As the BSA factory p ulsa ted and hu mmed away on the project, it became very apparent that cost was of no conseq uence. The projec t bike was li ttered with numerous titanium parts machined from solid billet, while numerous other magn esium and alu minum pieces found their way onto the mo torcycle. In fact , no real financia l reco rd was kept on the outland ish ma chine, and the exorbitant material and fabrication costs were quie tly a mortized wit hin the s ha d o w y "cloak-and -dagger" BSA fortress. "The titanium frame was one of the later items to come about," Smith said . "However, some of the items that came earlier were things like a Gold Sta r rea r hub, forged in titanium. This was quite re ma rka ble, and so me w ha t red undant because there were - at that time - magnesiu m hub s avai lab le that we re lighter tha n titanium. Certain things we re happening w ith the project that led me to believe that thin gs co u ld ha ve been d on e a bit d ifferentl y . We also had a spool hub done in titanium , and a disc brake for the rear wheel, and the same fo r th e fron t. Th e rims were made of hig h-grade steel, and the spoke nipples w e re mad e of alum inu m , a nd t he spokes were made of titanium. All of the parts came to us at different times, and the engine was the latest of all beca use it had the long est lead time. And th is was a n e ngin e that had an entirel y ne w cra nkshaft, gea rs, cylind er an d cylinder head. These are tricky things to cast and machine and put toge ther and do some rudimentary tests o n before dropping th em into the frame. The cra nkcas e of the e ng ine was magnesium, and the cy linder was a h o ne y- ch r o m e bore p laced dire ctl y o n to the aluminum cylinder, and the he ad was a lso aluminu m. Obviousl y, these things were not ju st pa r ts that you d raw up and ma ke; th ese parts took th e eng ine ers som e tim e to d esi gn and cas t and machine. We even had titanium handle-bars." Finally, as the Eng lish winter began to break, the bike " and all of its ultratrick parts - began to com e together. All (Above) "Winning Finnish GP some we eks after Italian event· still us ing rear disc brake, see master cylin der just beh ind heel." (Left) "SmithlFriedrlchs Italian GP, 1966. BSA has titanium frame. handlebars. footrests, lower crown and rear hub, magnesium upper crown, crankcases, fork sliders. etc. The rear brake Is st ill the Airhart disc, but the Iront has reverted to drum." of the effort, time, re search , development - and money - were now abo ut to face the rea l-world "acid test" of brutal m o tocr oss track. Th e maid en BSA s hakedown outing was now at hand . How wo uld the bike, whi ch weighed in a t a mind- boggling 194 pounds (this is li ghter than most of tod ay ' s factor y motocross bikes, and more than 35 pounds lighter than Doug Henry's new Yama ha factory YZM400 four-stroke), fare in its firs t fora y into battle? "Sometime toward th e end of February," Smith said,."we finally got the bike put togethe r in the correct order. We the n went to the Hants Grand National, w hich was the first big British motocross of th e year, and the one way we traditionally tried o ut th e ne w mach in es, I finis hed seco nd, using every piece of the new machine: the titanium handl ebars; the disc brakes; and the titanium sw ing arm, w hich, we did n't rea li ze at the lime, would stretch like a piece of chewing gu m and eventually lead to a number of hand lin g problems. I could tell im med iately tha t it was a very ill-h andling machine. But all in all, the factory and I were sufficiently confident that we could st raig hten out the bi ke over the first half of the season - which, in fact. we would find out is w hat it wo u ld take." Whil e Smith and his BSA comrades drove away from th e Han ts Grand National confident that they could sort th e bike out during the early stages of . the 1966 Grand Prix season, they wo uld soo n find ou t that they might have bit- a ten off mo re tec hno logy than th ey could chew. "The ve ry fi rs t Grand Prix was in Switzerland," Smi th said after a few moments of deep thought. "I remember in practice tha t we wou ld po p o ve r a g rassy hill and come down on to a piece of hard-top road . During practice, I followed Pau l Freidrichs (No te: Freidrichs , of East Germany, rode a then- bi zarr e two- stroke CZ to three consecutive A M 500cc World Champions hips in '66, '67 a nd ' 68) over this knoll , a n d w e drop p ed o nto the bl a ckt op a nd I screwed the throttle on and raced righ t past him. I mean, I was abso lu tely amazed at how I just went stra ight past him. I was ge tting really good hook-up o n tha t black top. We we re us ing a IT carburetor, which was quite a big road racing carburetor at the time, and, whil e it didn' t wo rk tha t 'good in the rougher areas, the moment I go t on a rela tively s m oo th s u r face , it hoo ke d up pretty good. I remember co ming in after the practice sess ion a n d bei ng e la ted beca use the machine was run ning so well. However, the actua l race was a disappointment. There were two legs to a Grand Prix then , and if you d idn't finish in bo th legs, yo u did n' t ge t an overall score. In the first race, I was up in fourth place and could see m y way to the front, but then the carbure tor fell off from the vibration, It came loose and screwed up the carbu retion royally. In th e end, I had to come into the pits. So that m ad e the second race so me w ha t unimpo rtant be cau se , back th en , it wasn' t like tod ay, where you ge t points for each ind ividu al mo to sco re . W e hung the cycle back together and, in the seco nd race, I lost the chain a number of times, and it was th en that we rea lized that the titanium swing arm was stre tching . Also, the d isc brakes we re rea lly a proble m: They were eithe r on or they were off. They would just stop the back wheel. The re was no feeling, and I was ge tting int o all kin d. of problems with them . And this was just the first GP i" While the titanium sw ing arm that graced th e bike was a lightweight wo rk of mechanical art, it had no busi ness being on a m ot ocro ss tr a ck . The BSA tea m soon lea rned tha t, while titanium is more tha n 60 percent lighter than steel (and s ig n ifican tly more expens ive), it has an amazing ten dency to bend and stretch. One must remember that, in the mid·'60s, titanium w as a rare and rnisund ers tood m etal, a nd BSA - w itho u t reall y bein g aware of it -~ was doing a significan t amo unt of "guinea p ig " developme nt wi th the funky new materia l. Mo reover, a number o f o the r mec hanical va riables - fro m the brakes to the carburetor - had to be rethought and re-tw eaked , as we ll. "We we nt back to England and certa inl y d id a lo t of wo rk ," Smith sa id . "We put a steel swing arm and dru m brakes on the machine. I mean, now we w er e in the racin g season, and w e couldn't be o ut tes ting thi ng. and ma king them better: it was now a question of, 'How in the hell are we go ing to do w ell in th e World Championship if the 27