Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Gilera 500cc Quattro Cilindri By PETER S 1ARR Bo.6. mel Klg'te: Jack of all Trades Mcintyre was born in Scotstoun, Glasgow, on November 2, 1928, and started his racing career in 1948 aboard an Ariel Red Hunter in local Glasgow-area scrambles. In 1951 he discovered road racing, although the gravel-riddled local track at Balado Airfield, Kinross, was only one step from some scrambles tra.cks! Mac won three out of his ftrst four races on a borrowed 350cc BSA Gold Star. This machine stood him in good stead when he ventured to the Isle of Man in 1952, where he finished second in the Junior Clubman's TT (In TT parlance, Junior refers to 350cc machines, Senior to 500cc machines). He returned later that year to the Isle for the Manx Grand Prix, where he won the Junior and finished second in the Senior on the same 350cc AJS machine. Mcintyre's racing career can be split into three chapters: the street circuits like the Isle of Man, The Northwest 200 and the Ulster Grand Prix; the British short circuits like Oulton Park, Mallory Park and Brands Hatch and the World Grands Prix. If anywhere, it was on the 37.75-mile road course on the Isle of Man where Mac's star shone brightest. It was the most difficult of race tracks, and not for the faint of heart. In his 1952 excursion riding a 350cc AJS for Sam Cooper, Mcintyre impressed many, although he failed to score finishes equal to his talent and expectations. A victory in the 350cc class at the Northwest 200 in Ireland was impressive enough to attract the factory people at AJS, and he was signed to ride in the Grand Prix World Championship for 1954. Mcintyre racked up successful finishes in Grands Prix at Holland, Belgium and Switzerland, and a third-place finish at the Ulster Grand Prix (a street course) on the works AJS. Not one to suffer fools lightly, Mac was not overly impressed with the AJS management, and for 1955 he was back riding a brace of Nortons for fellow Scot, Joe Potts. In the late '50s and early '60s there were a number of tuners who took the stock Manx Nortons and cajoled more horsepower out of the OHC single. Other than Potts, there was Francis Beart, Ray Petty, Reg Dearden and Steve Lancefield. That year Mcintyre finished second in the 350cc TT, splitting the works Moto Gunis of Bill Lomas and Cecil Sandford. In the Senior (the 500cc TT), he finished fifth. On Joe Potts' Nortons in 1956, Mac had a good (but not banner) year. As competitive as they were on the British Short circuits, the writing was on the wall for British singles in Intemational events and GPs. Bob Mac gets airborne at the 1952 Isle of Man, during his first and only Clubman's TT. He finished second after setting a record lap. With World Champion and TT winner Geoff Duke injured and not able to ride in the 1957 TTs, Gilera offered Bob Mcintyre, with Duke's encouragement, the amazing four-cylinder, twin-overhead-cam Italian creations. The Italians were fast, dominating intemational Grand Prix motorcycle racing with the MV Agusta, Moto Guzzi and Gilera in the 350 and 500cc classes, and Mondial, Morini, Ducati and MV in the 125 and 250cc classes, and they had the money to hire the best riders. For Gilera and Bob Mac, 1957 was to be a kismet year. In the Junior TT, Mcintyre wheeled out the 350cc Gilera, never having raced it before. Following practice, he gave an interview to the BBC radio reporter, saying that "previous experience on British machines did not count for much when it came to taking the 160 mph Gilera down the treacherous Bray Hill and up and down the mountain." With the sun shining over the 2000foot Snaefell mountain. Bob grabbed the lead on the first lap, and when his two closest rivals Dickie Dale on the slngle-cylinder Gilera and John Hartle on the works Norton - fell at Quarry Bends, Bob went on to win in spite of a persistent misfire.. He set a new race and lap record of 94.99 mph, and 97.47 mph, a considerable increase on previous years' competitors. Mcintyre then lined up the 500cc Gilera in the number- 72 slo\, one of the furthest back. In the Isle of Man TT - a timed event - riders -start in pairs at 10-second intervals. From a standing start, his first lap broke Geoff Duke's 1955 record at 99.99 mph, just shy of the magic "ton: Bo.6. mel Klg'te: Breaker of the Ton 32 MARCH " 2000' II: U II: I e n e vv so the meantime. This had allowed Surtees to cruise to a series of untroubled titles, just as Agostini was able to do a decade later, against minimal opposition - but amazingly, Minter defeated MV-mounted Mike Hailwood riding position is identical to that of a Manx Norton, such as th~t with which Duke had defeated the works Gilera fours in 1951, in a remarkable demonstration of the outpaced British single's handling superiority. Geoff's to win the opening race of Gilera's comeback season at Imola in '63. role in the development of the ultra- After that, though, MV stepped up development and was not beaten enabled him to advise Gilera on how to accomplish a similar improvement again: by the Ulster GP later that year, Hailwood's MV was 6 mph faster than the Gileras through the the same stretched-out riding position on the Gilera as on a Manx, in spite of speed traps. MANX METAPHOR Any comparison between the Gilera and the rival first-generation fourcylinder MV Agusta raced until 1966 is all the more valid given that both machines were designed by the same man, Roman engineer Pietro Remor. Originally responsible for the watercooled, supercharged, pre-World War II Rondine four, Remor was required by the postwar ban on supercharging to design an all-new un blown aircooled four-cylinder Gilera, which duly appeared in 1948. By the time this had been developed to the point that Masetti could win the first of Gilera's six world titles in 1950, Remor had deserted to the fledgling Agusta team, for whom he had designed a carbon copy four-cylinder motor. But throughout the 1950s, the MV copy was no match for the Gilera original, mainly because it didn't handle as well. Originally, the Gilera wasn't much better, but Geoff Duke's arrival on the team in 1953 changed all that - and I can truthfully say I felt his influence the moment I sat on the Gilera Quattro at Monza. The simple fact is that the Gilera's stable ·Norton Featherbed frame on the Italian bike, and the result is its compact 55-inch wheelbase - surprisingly short for an in-line four. A testament to Duke's influence is the Norton-like design of the twin-loop Gilera frame, fitted with Gilera's own 34mm forks, which have a curious pair of vertical struts between the top and bottom triple clamps to improve rigidity. At the rear, the relatively flimsy-looking swingarm is fitted with the twin Giding shocks that by 1963 were ubiquitous on every 500cc GP bike, allowing the 66 horsepower at 10,400 rpm that Gilera ultimately extracted from the long-stroke 52 x 52.8mm 499cc engine to be successfully delivered to the road. Only later were the advantages of a higherrevving, over-square engine with more top-end power to become apparent, and with its two-valve cylinder head design, 100-degree valve angle and steeply-domed pistons, the Gilera power unit is a true child of the 1950s. Remor's engine design set the pattern for future imitation, whether in Italy, Japan or even France, with a central gear drive to the twin overhead camshafts up the middle of the four individually cast alloy cylinders and this thunderous lap had put him 39 seconds ahead of John Surtees on "time" (though not on the road). On four of the next seven laps, he averaged over 100 mph, with the fastest circuit coming 00 lap four at 101.12. Surtees, a TT winner for MV in 1956, had started over four minutes ahead of Mcintyre, but his four-cylinder MV Augusta was physically caught and passed on the last lap by Mcintyre. But as the two thundered down the steep grade from Kate's Cottage towards Creg-ny-Baa, Surtees made one last-ditch attempt to challenge Mcintyre. With eight cylinders screaming through open megaphones and Mcintyre's fans cheering, the sound was cacophonous. In the late 50's the TT races were covered by the BBC radio, which had reporters stationed at key points around the 37.75-mile circuit. Some of these audio reports were released on phonograph records by Stanley Schofield. Today, these are truly collectors' items. In the Golden Jubilee edition, the reporter described the moment when Surtees re-passed Mcintyre with typical British understatement: Graham Walker, announcer: "Surtees momentarily overtook the winner Bob Mcintyre at Creg-Ny-Baa" to the great excitement of BBC commentator Alan Dixon. Dixon: "We've got to pin our eyes on the ..• there, straight down the road...da,k like and Surtees is here too, and he's TAKEN HIM! Surtees has taken Mclntyrel Surtees has taken Mcintyre on the straight here! This fantastic battle is terrific... listen to them!" [Sound of the bikes accelerating away hard in very close proximity from Craig-ny-Baa to Brandish Comer, the fastest part of the course.] Although Surtees passed Mcintyre, because Surtees started well ahead of him, Mcintyre was well ahead on time, and Surtees provided no real threat. Over 300 miles of the most difficult road race circuit in the world, covered in two hours and 40 minutes at an average Bob Mcintyre aboard the speed of 99.4 mph. Bob Mcintyre had pulled off the doumagnificent 500cc Gllera in ble, on bjkes he had never raced before, and had become the 1957 TT during one of tlie first rider ever to lap the world's most demanding his four 100+ mph laps. race track at over 100mph. The longest TT ever had given birth to a new era and a new star.

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