The Evolution of the Motocross Bike

The Evolution of the MX Bike Through Landmark Examples

Motocross Racers: 30 Years of Legendary Dirt Bikes (Motorbooks, 2003)

By Ray Ryan, Photographs by Bill Forsyth and Jeremy Holland

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Motocross Racers is an Australian production that has been published for the American market by Motorbooks, the prolific Minnesota-based motorsports label.  It’s a beautifully produced book that serves as both a picture book as well as a guide to the constant evolution of the post-war motocross machine.  The author Ray Ryan and photographers Bill Forsyth and Jeremy Holland are all active in the vintage motocross movement and work together on the magazine VMX.

For the uninitiated, motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle competition where the riders race on unpaved circuits with steep hills, descents, straights and corners.  Originally these circuits were natural paths through British and European parks, but eventually more challenging, purpose-built courses became the norm.   Because the bike has to be muscled around the circuit, with the arms lifting the handlebars and the legs absorbing the shock of repeated landings, it is a deceptively athletic event, requiring good upper and lower body strength as well as endurance. Crashes are also part of the sport, but the most common result of these are muscle strains, bruising and broken bones rather than serious injury, for modern safety gear has made the sport much safer.

Motocross started in Great Britain in 1924, where the sport was originally called “scrambles,” and it gradually became popular in Europe. By 1952 a European Championship was organized, and in 1957 that series became a World Championship.   Immigrants from England and the continent brought the sport to Australia and New Zealand, where it became popular after World War II.

In the United States, where flat-track racing on oval courses had long been popular, scrambles on closed circuits only had a small following until the 1960s.  By 1966 and 1967, when European riders like Torsten Hallman and Oriel Puig Bulto began to demonstrate their abilities on the relatively easy American courses, some American riders began to specialize in motocross.  The Trans-AMA, a U.S. series with the top international riders, began in 1970 and helped to fix motocross in the American consciousness and start an off-road motorcycle boom in the States.  In the early years of the Trans-AMA, European riders were dominant, but in 1978, the last year of the series, Bob “Hurricane” Hannah was the victor. By the 1980s, U.S. motocross had come of age and American riders began a 13-year winning streak at the Motocross de Nations, the “Olympics of Motocross.”

In any sport that pits one man and machine against another, competitors will strive to improve their machines in order to gain an edge against their rivals.  In the 1940s motocross bikes were usually just street bikes that were stripped of their lights and other road equipment, but gradually these lightly modified machines – which did not cope well with the bumps and jumps of the rough circuits – gave way to stronger, lighter custom frames made of light-but-strong chrome-moly tubing for those who were factory-sponsored or who could afford them.  The best riders rode on hand-built factory specials, the production of which was only affordable for factories which sold thousands of motorcycles.  Some riders began fabricating “bitsa” bikes (for a bit of this and a bit of that), which gradually led to the mass-production of specialized motocross bikes from major manufacturers who tested components and concepts on their prototype bikes known as “works bikes.”

The Legendary Motocross Beauty, the Rickman-Metisse

During the evolution of the sport of motocross from the 1950s through the 1970s, the top manufacturers in the early years were Belgian (FN or Fabrique National) and British (BSA, Norton, Matchless), then Czech (CZ), Swedish (Lito, Husqvarna), and German (Maico). In the 1960s and ‘70s, the tremendous engineering talent and volume of the Japanese began to tell, and Suzuki, Yamaha and Honda won one world title after another while also dominating the huge new sport of American motocross.   By the late 1970s, the four large Japanese factories were selling more than a million motocross bikes a year.

Stadium motocross, known as “Supercross,” began in the United States and soon spread to Europe.  Drawing audiences of 70,000 or more, Supercross events were incredibly successful and immediately outdrew the crowds on outdoor circuits.  Its tremendous popularity was a lifeline for outdoor motocross in the United States, where the circuits were usually far away from population centers.  Because the spectacular supercross events were fast-paced, colorful and easy to film, they made motocross into a trendy sport and top riders like Bob Hannah and Jeremy McGrath became household names.

Engine technology also changed dramatically over the decades. In the 1950s, heavier, more complex four-stroke engines (where the spark plug fires every four times the engine’s piston rotates) were dominant in motocross, but by the 1960s, two-stroke technology had evolved to the point where their greater power and lighter weight made them the mount of choice.  However, in recent years things have come full circle as the two-stroke engine, which produces considerably more emissions, has come to be seen as an evolutionary dead-end and has been replaced by new, powerful, lightweight 4-stroke designs.

All this evolution is on display in Motocross Racers, which starts out with four-stroke motocross bikes. First there is an exotic factory-built Les Archer Manx-Norton special, then a lengthy section on the legendary Rickman-Metisse, the English frame kits that made factory “works bike” technology available to the every rider who could afford them in the 1960s. This is followed by an Eric Cheney-built custom bike with the famous BSA Gold Star engine, then a BSA 441 “Victor” Grand Prix bike.  The transition to two-stroke technology begins with the unbreakable Czech CZ, a classic Swedish Husqvarna 250 motocrosser that was ridden by the World Champion Torsten Hallman, followed by a 1967 Suzuki TM 250, the Japanese company’s first real stab at what was becoming a growing market. The last bike of the 1960s featured in the book is the small Hodaka Super Rat, a 100cc motocross bike which got thousands of American boys started in the sport.

A Beautifully Photographed Book

Motocross Racers includes the ground-breaking 1973 Honda Elsinore, a Bultaco Pursang Mk 7, then World Champion Joel Robert’s featherweight “works” Suzuki RH250, the rare British four-stroke CCM special, a bike that couldn’t make the grade because of its low power-to-weight ratio, the revolutionary 1974 Yamaha460YB, that began the single rear shock revolution, another Husqvarna, one of the CZ company’s last competitive bikes, a rare Puch factory motocrosser, then there is a steady stream of long-travel 1980s Japanese mounts – Hondas, Yamahas, Kawasakis and Suzukis – only broken up by a Husqvarna and a Maico, as the Japanese had become dominant in racing as well as technological development. The march of bikes concludes with some 1990s Yamahas and Hondas, the development of the monocoque-framed motocross bike and finally, with the Austrian KTM company’s latest model at press-time, the 2003, KTM525SX, a light, powerful 4-stroke bike with a wonderfully broad powerband.

Rather than a steady narrative, author Ray Ryan has chosen to cover each of his motorcycles in its own chapter, describing its unique strengths and weaknesses and the part it played in the evolution of the motocross bike.  His writing is clear and concise, and the text is not overly technical, but those new to motocross may want to look some things up on the Internet.  There isn’t a lot of information on the riders of each era, but the focus here is on the technical development, rather than the personalities involved.  The images are outstanding, with virtually all of the posed in suitable outdoor locations. It would have been nice to see more period action shots, but permission and photo gathering may have been an issue, especially for authors working from Australia. In only 158 pages of text, Ryan covers a lot of bumpy ground.  I can’t think of a better introduction to the mechanical side of motocross history than Motocross Racers: 30 Years of Legendary Dirt Bikes.

Rating: 5 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

The Shops of the Men Who Build Hot Rods

Hot Rod Garages

Book by Peter Vincent (Motorbooks, 2009)

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Peter Vincent is a prominent photographer and writer whose specialty is American hot rods. In Hot Rod Garages, he profiles a number of men who build hot rods, both prominent, award-winning constructors like Steve Moal and Roy Brizio, who work out of large, professional shops, as well as men like Pete Eastwood and Cole Foster who create their custom cars in backyard garages.

Hot Rod Garages is an attractive, small coffee-table book with short profiles of eighteen men who build hot rods. There are a number of photographs of the shops the builders work in as well as some examples of their finished products.  A number of these talented body, paint and chassis men have Bonneville connections and have built cars that have competed for records on the Utah salt flats, which are known to the initiated as “the big, white dyno.” These men thus build cars that are not simply intended for Sunday afternoon cruising, but vehicles that must be constructed in order to perform safely at 200 miles an hour.

The profiles are brief and not terribly introspective as the author’s aim is to summarize the builder’s career, to describe how their shop spaces came into being and what types of rods they create.  Because the author comes from Idaho, a number of the hot rod craftsmen profiled come from the Northwest, far from the sport of hot rodding’s Southern California origins.  This is a welcome aspect to the book, because many of the car magazines tend to be Los Angeles-centric.  There are some veteran Los Angeles rod builders covered here, as well as a few from the San Francisco Bay area.

The entry on Steve Moal, an exceptional craftsman from Oakland who grew up in the coachwork business, was guest-written by Michael Dobrin, and it is the most thorough and best-written chapter in the book. I would have preferred that fewer men were profiled and that all of the entries were of this length.  Some of the constructors like Moal clearly deserve a book of their own.  There is also a nice chapter on the Rolling Bones shop in New York, which includes a series of images of the construction of an all-metal ’34 Ford “Three Window.”  This is an excellent photo essay, as it shows how a hot rod is constructed in the “old school” way.

Another suggestion that I would have for a future volume, if Vincent plans one, would be to include more of the builders’ views on shop set-up and equipment, as based on the title, this book is devoted not to the finished hot rods but to the spaces in which they are created.  Also, with the “rat rod” movement, there are a lot of younger men getting into rod building and they too deserve coverage. Despite the uneasiness some conservative, middle-aged car enthusiasts have with the tattoo culture that accompanies the Rat Rod movement, in an age in which industrial arts has all but been abandoned, where the idea of masculinity is under assault and where fewer American-born men can build anything at all, we need to encourage men who have constructive hobbies, especially ones that can turn into careers.

To summarize, this is a welcome book, for it is important to see not only beautifully chromed and painted completed hot rods, but the men who construct them and where they are created.  It’s nice to see a focus on smaller builders working out of spaces many readers can afford rather than just the lavish dream-shops of men like Troy Trepanier or Boyd Coddington, who produce the complex, sophisticated rods that are most often seen in magazines and on television.

Rating: 4 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

The Birth of the Hot Rod: From the Dry Lakes to the Drag Strip, 1920-1970

A Classic Book for Every Car Enthusiast

Dry Lakes and Drag Strips: The American Hot Rod

Book by Dean Batchelor (Motorbooks, Reprinted, 2002)

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Dry Lakes and Drag Strips is a re-printed classic devoted to the birth and early years of the Hot Rod movement.  Written by the late writer and editor Dean Batchelor, this book should be on the shelf of every serious American automobile enthusiast and especially younger hot rodders, who are now looking back to the 1940s and 1950s for inspiration.

In the early years of American motorsports there was not a grand distinction between automobiles and enthusiasts of different stripes.  Wealthy and glamorous spectators could be seen at a midget dirt track race, a board-track event or one of the early-century road races that were held on unpaved courses from Long Island to Santa Monica.  Racing was racing, and all of it was hot, dirty and extremely dangerous.

During World War II, all forms of motorsport were put on hold while drivers and mechanics served in uniform or worked in aircraft factories. Then, in the post-war era, hot rodders who usually raced Fords that they modified themselves began to be seen as a lower class of automotive enthusiasts than drivers who could simply write a check for an exotic Jaguar or Maserati or even one of the slippery new Ferraris from Italy.  Even the word “hot rod” which was coined about 1945 to describe the fenderless, re-shaped cars many of the young enthusiasts favored, became a pejorative.

Meanwhile, road racing became glamorous and 1950s events were held on courses in tony places like Bridgehampton on Long Island, Lime Rock in Connecticut and Pebble Beach on the Carmel Peninsula.  While many road racers either came from prep school backgrounds or worked to give people that impression, the men who raced hot rods and started drag racing came from lower or middle class backgrounds.  As the years went on, these distinctions seemed to harden, so there were many serious automobile enthusiasts on one side or the other of this divide who knew almost nothing about the other type of racing and there was little cross-over between hot rodders and sports cars, except occasionally for Corvette enthusiasts.

In the last decade or so, enthusiasts like Bruce Meyer has been working to erase the divide between hot rods and classic cars and road racers.  Meyer is one of the most discriminating of automobile collectors, one who has the patience to wait and buy just the right car.  A true connoisseur rather than an accumulator of cars, the tall Beverly Hills resident owns some of the most interesting historic Ferraris, including a 250SWB and a 250TRC/V-12, with a great California racing history, but he is also a hot rod collector who realized the historic significance of some of the early home-built cars early on.  Today, he has some of the most important historic hot rods including the Doane Spencer Deuce roadster that my friend Lynn Wineland owned and first showed me at Neal East’s Alhambra garage in 1978, the Pierson Brothers Coupe and the So Cal Special, a bellytank lakester, made from a surplus Lockheed P-38 under-wing fuel tank.   Thanks to the efforts of Meyer and a few other enthusiasts, the prestigious Pebble Beach Councours d’Elegance first included a Hot Rod class in 1997 and since then historic home-built hot rods have been shown on the lawn next to the Ferraris, Bugattis and Dusenbergs every few years.

When my friend Steve Foster and I discovered cars in our youth, our interests were omnivorous; we liked anything that was mechanical and fast, so we felt that these hot rod/sports car distinctions were artificial and perhaps even a little silly.  After all, weren’t the panel beaters at Murphy Coachworks in Pasadena, who made Dusenburg bodies, just as talented as some English or Italian craftsman doing the same job on the other side of the pond? When we discovered automobiles and racing in the 1960s, we liked it all, whether it was funny cars at the old Irwindale Raceway, Can-Am cars at Riverside, midgets at the old Speedway 605 or Indy Cars at Ontario Motor Speedway.  We were just as thrilled to see someone driving a Ferrari 250LM on the street in Newport Beach as we were watching Paul Pittman start his supercharged, then turbocharged Sassy Gremlin AA Gasser in his Alhambra backyard.

This is a long and roundabout way of introducing the author of Dry Lakes and Drag Strips, Dean Batchelor, for he was the rare person who bridged these two worlds, the world of dry-lake and drag racing and the sports car planet with its Ferraris, Porsches and Jaguars.  Like my friend and mentor Lynn Wineland, Batchelor was mechanically and artistically inclined and one of the many car enthusiasts who served in the air force during or after the war.  Batchelor was shot down over Germany, became a P.O.W. and then returned home and became one of the movers and shakers in the post-war hot rod movement.  He raced on the dry lakes and used his design skills to help create an important early streamliner, the flathead powered So-Cal Special, which he built with Alex Xydias and then drove to a speed of 190 miles at hour at Bonneville in 1949.

In addition to his mechanical abilities and talent for design, Batchelor wrote well, with both precision and clarity, and in the 1950s he began working as an editor for Hop Up, a digest-sized hot rod publication. He then he made the jump to John and Elaine Bond’s Road & Track Magazine, which had rapidly become the bible of the sports car set.   Working for R & T, Batchelor became a sports car enthusiast and in particular a Ferrari devotee. The Italian cars clearly appealed to his love of design and his appreciation for mechanical complexity.  After he left Road & Track, Batchelor wrote a series of books on the history and development of early Ferrari sports cars. It was in this era that I met Batchelor and John Bond, both at the same Concours I believe, where he may have been serving as a judge.  Bud Cohen, a wonderful old car collector, introduced us, and as I recall, Batchelor gracefully endured my questions about writing as a career.

Despite his book on the great blue-blooded sports car racer and collector Briggs Cunningham and working for and writing a book about Casino owner William “Bill” Harrah, who had the world’s largest collection of cars parked cheek-to-jowl in his Reno museum, Dean Batchelor never forgot his automotive roots.  He knew that the post-war racing era, when men pursued speed, first on the sandy dry lakes of Southern California’s Antelope Valley, then on the Bonneville Salt Flats and eventually on drag strips across the country, was special.  So for many years he wanted to write a book about the origins of hot rodding; fortunately, he managed to complete Hot Rods and Dry Lakes just before his untimely death in 1995.

While men had been testing their modified cars on the dry lakes in the California high desert since the late 1920s, the war years had created a pent-up demand in the young men who had a need for speed, and things got going again soon after the Germans and Japanese were vanquished.  While before the war drivers raced their cars on the huge, flat surface of Muroc Dry Lake, the Army Air Force had taken over this lakebed for the vast flight-test facility that became Edwards Air Force Base, where the sound barrier was broken.  So the racing action moved to some of the other lakes in the area, most prominently El Mirage.

In his book, Batchelor covers the birth and gestation of the hot rod sport with a straightforward, chapter-by-chapter narrative along with a number of sidebars that have more detail on a particular person or subject.  It is an excellent way to work for a project of this type as the narrative doesn’t get bogged down with two much detail, but the information is there if the reader wants it. In the first chapter Batchelor summarizes pre-war racing on the lakes, where the top speeds were right around 120 miles per hour, and the birth of the speed shop; chapter two focuses on the ubiquitous Model T Ford, the inexpensive automobile that became the raw material for most early hot rods and that had an engine that much of the early speed equipment was made for.  Chapter 3 covers the famous Model “A” and later Fords that superseded the “T’s,” and chapter 4 summarizes the birth of the hot rod culture on the dry lakes and streets of Southern California.  Batchelor had a great understanding of the technology of the time and he writes of the development of the Ford “Flathead” V-8 and other engines in chapters 5 and 6.

The clubs and associations were the glue that held the hot rod scene together, and there were dozens of clubs throughout Southern California with names like the Mobilers, the Throttlers, the Pasadena Roadster Club, the Outriders and the Road Runners, some of which are still in existence.  A well-organized sanctioning body, the Southern California Timing Association (the S.C.R.A.), was formed in 1937.  Originally its meets favored open roadsters, but eventually it gave structure to the entire sport of land-speed-record racing, creating a vast array of classes and running annual events on the Bonneville Salt Flats as well as frequent speed trials on the flat, dusty surface of El Mirage.

During the 1950s there was a great deal of street racing activity, and it was these dangerous impromptu and semi-organized races that created a negative image for street rodders.  After all, the dry lakes were a long way away, while there were long, smooth, open stretches of road all over Southern California.  In the early 1950s some of the more responsible members of the hot rod clubs decided that there needed to be a new organization to create shorter, ¼-mile events where young drivers could test and race their cars, and this is how the sport of drag racing was born.   There is a nice capsule biography in the book to Batchelor’s friend, the recently-departed Wally Parks, the first editor of Hot Rod, who founded the National Hot Rod Association in 1951.  Drag racing began on unused airstrips, but soon purpose-built strips were operating and the N.H.R.A. Safety Safari was touring the country to encourage racing at sanctioned events, under controlled conditions, rather than on the street.  As drag racing grew, racing on the lakes became a specialized activity, kept going by a group of die-hard enthusiasts.

Now, there was some crossover between the sports car and hot rod crowds and these were the road-racing specials that Batchelor knew so well and wrote about in chapter 8. These “specials” were just hot rods that were created to race around road circuits rather than in straight-line competition.  Built by clever, “seat of the pants” engineers like Ak Miller and Max Bakchowsky, these ungainly roadsters often beat the glamorous Ferraris, Maseratis and Jaguars in road racing events, many of which were also held at unused military airports.  There was always some resentment of the hot rodded specials from some of the wealthy car owners, but their speed was undeniable.

Batchelor covers forced induction – superchargers – in chapter 9 as well as exotic fuels that helped boost the performance of early racers.  Though they are mentioned earlier, Chapter 10 is devoted to the Bonneville Speed Trials, Chapter 11 summarizes the first few decades of early drag racing and Chapter 12 covers the men who built the speed equipment business. A number of the men Batchelor raced with came to start racing equipment companies in their garages, businesses that became going concerns and in some cases, large corporations.  Men like Vic Edelbrock Sr., Mickey Thompson, George Wright and Fred Carillo saw a business opportunity in providing equipment for the growing hot rod movement. The concluding chapter is devoted to publications like Robert “Pete” Peterson’s groundbreaking Hot Rod, Hop Up and Car Craft.  Finally, there is a nice glossary of “Dry Lakes and Street Rod Lingo” and appendix with a chronology of early meets, a list of clubs, champions and early drag racing records.

In the post-war years, the hot rod was seen as part of an outlaw movement. Through the efforts of men like Dean Batchelor and his comrades, it was given structure and respectability.  Now, the hot rod and the car crafting hobby is part of American cultural history, an era that is looked back on with fondness and nostalgia by people around the world. This uniquely American hobby, something from a simpler and more innocent time that was born on the streets and dry lakes of California, now has almost universal appeal.   This fondly written book, which covers the origins of the sport better than any other, is a fitting epitaph for Dean Batchelor, a man whose life and career revolved around automobiles he loved.

Rating: 5 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

Tommy Byrne: An Uncensored Look at Motor Racing

Its a Read-Right-Through Sort of Book

Crashed and Byrned

Book by Tommy Byrne, with Mark Hughes (2009)

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Crashed and Byrned is a warts and all 1980s sports memoir in the tradition of the immortal Ball Four.  Written by Tommy Byrne, a poor but oh-so-talented Irish lad who almost made it big in motor racing, the book spares no one, least of all the retired driver himself.  He gives credit where credit is due, but also settles old scores, for the driver clearly was a man out of time, a passionate, daring racer of the old school, who wasn’t the right man for the corporate world racing had become by time he seemed poised to advance to its highest step. It’s a thought-provoking book.

Racing at every level is now just a more exotic form of advertising, where  sponsor’s dollars are the true fuel that racing cars run on.  This has come to mean that a clean-cut, politically correct image must be projected at all times, in every interview and in the driver’s actions on and off the track.   Corporate flacks instruct racers in cliché-speak – in what to say and how to say it.  This P.R. overload has now distanced racing from virtually any show of emotion or passion.  Eventually, this bloodlessness may  lead to viewers becoming less passionate as they find racing  almost as scripted as World Wrestling Federation shows.

I grew up watching the likes of Parnelli Jones, Joe Leonard, A.J. Foyt, Jim Hurtibise and Mario Andretti drive, and crusty, colorful old wrenches like Clint Brawner and Smokey Unick build the cars.  The drivers of the 1950s and 1960s raced every chance they got and seemed to fight and feud as well as they drove.  As corporate sponsorship grew in the 1970s, racing began to change, and as the sponsorship dollars increased, the corporate logos and trailers got bigger and soon the P.R. shills and handlers began to shape the image of each team.  Any driver who was colorful enough to be who he wanted and say what he thought soon found that he wasn’t going to fit in on most teams.

Tommy Byrne grew up as a diminutive, bullied, bed-wetting, thieving, poor-as-dirt Irishman, and in the book he tells readers what it was like before sexually-repressed Ireland settled its “troubles” and the Emerald Isle became a middle-class nation.  He describes his own ill-mannered ways as a youth as well as the drunken lower-class louts that surrounded him on his rapid rise.  Let me just use a politician’s language and say that mistakes were made and leave readers to discover what they were. Byrne’s hand-to-mouth existence as a young driver is here as well as his rapid transition to winning races and championships in Formula Ford and Formula 3, those stepping stones to Formula One stardom.

Byrne’s ill-fated Formula One career started and ended with the miserably underfunded Theodore team, which couldn’t drive out of its own way.  In his single shot at the true big time, he aced a test with super-smooth Team McLaren, knowing all the while that he would never fit into the corporate structure envisioned by Ron Dennis, the white-on-rice titan who took over the team a number of years after its more colorful Kiwi founder was killed in a testing accident at Goodwood.

By the early 1980s, when Byrne was competing in England with a number of wealthy Brazilian talents in Formula Ford and Formula 3, many drivers were “buying” their rides with family money or corporate sponsorships from back home.  This self-proclaimed “Knacker from Dundalk” clearly resented those who stepped over him, men like Raul Boesel, who he saw as saw rising, not always because of superior talent, but rather deeper pocket books.  Byrne also raced against the ultimate Brazilian talent, the young Aryton Senna. Today, the 52 year-old driver uses his talent, insight and experience to coach young drivers, holding court on the Mid-Ohio racing circuit.  From start to finish, this first-person account, which is accompanied by occasional contextual commentary by writer Mark Hughes, pulls no punches and it’s a fast read that deserved the award as “Irish Sports Book of the Year” that it won for 2008.

Rating: 5 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

The Mythical “Works Bikes” of the Greatest Professional Motocrossers

"Red Meat" for Vintage Motocross Fans

Legendary Motocross Bikes: Championship Winning Factory Works Bikes

Book by Terry Good

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Terry Good’s Legendary Motocross Bikes is an exceptional new book devoted to the author’s incredible collection of the championship-winning motocross specials known as “works bikes.” Anyone who spent time around the dirt-bike scene back in the 1970s or 1980s knows what a “works bike” is and is familiar with the mystique that surrounded them, but this term is probably obscure to younger motorsports enthusiasts or the general public, so it can do with a bit of explanation…

A “works bike” is a motorcycle that has been specially prepared for competition by the factory, or in the English parlance, “the works” as in the “Triumph works” or the “BSA works.”  With motorsports, there has always been the concept of “win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” Whether on two wheels or four, racing success has always given motorcycle and automobile companies greater prestige and helped them to move product.  And, in motorcycle racing, when the factory runs its own racing program, that effort is known as a “works team” to differentiate it from private entrants racing on the same model bike.

A “works bike” was usually based on a showroom model, but the engineers at the factory often used their racing team as a test program to try out prototypes and new components to see how they work.  Factories usually tried to make the motorcycles their works teams used appear as close to the showroom models as possible in order to create the illusion that their famous riders rode a bike that was exactly like the one you could buy.  In reality, the motorcycle factories were often just as good at creating illusions as the magician David Copperfield.

“Works bikes” were often full of exotic components that were too light or too expensive to sell to the general public.  These factory specials could have special frames, lighter engine castings and internals or upgraded suspension components.  In some cases, the special parts would filter down to showroom models, but in others the exotic materials were only intended for one purpose – to win races and cover the factory in glory.

One Man's Obsession With "Factory Bikes"

In the 1950s, England’s BSA had a factory “works team” that it used to test motorcycles and win “Scrambles” races, which is what the English then called the sport of motocross.  The special versions of the “BSA Gold Star bikes that its riders won races on used exotic Reynolds 531 aircraft tubing, improved suspension components and more powerful engines to cut a swath through British competition.   As Sweden and then Czechoslovakia became motocross powers, its companies also began to produce more exotic motorcycles for its sponsored riders to use.

In the early 1970s, our author Terry Good, the hero of this tale, began to compete in American motocross competition.  He was good enough to become a professional and to compete on the AMA (the “American Motorcycle Association,” because this is a story about men who often need doctors rather than the ones who practice medicine) 125cc National Circuit.  This was a great time to be active in American motocross because it was the era that the sport began to grow by leaps and bounds, and we went from seeing the European riders dominate every U.S. motocross they entered to parity and then eventually American domination.  And Good, like every other young motocross racer, developed a fascination with the mystical works bike that the champion riders were mounted on.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the special bikes the hotshot Europeans rode when they came to the states for the Trans-AMA series and other races took on a great mystique.  In the beginning the works bikes Americans coveted were lightweight two-stroke Czech CZ’s, Swedish Husqvarnas and German Maicos, but as the best European riders, men like Joel Robert, Torsten Hallman and Roger DeCoster, signed contracts with the Japanese factories, the European works bikes were replaced in young men’s motocross dreams by factory Yamahas, Suzukis, Kawasakis and Hondas.

The Japanese manufacturers were much larger companies than the specialized European motorcycle firms.  Each of them sold hundreds of thousands of motorcycles each year and this gave them deeper pockets as well as greater engineering resources than their European counterparts. The Japanese factory specials became increasingly innovative and exotic and each of them represented an considerable investment.  When the factory pilots made an appearance at a local motocross track, it wasn’t the famous riders that many of the male spectators wanted to see when they crowded around the pits, but instead the special works bikes, in an effort to learn what made them so fast.

The Technical Development of Motocross in the 1970s and 1980s

Terry Good raced for a number of years and obtained his first former works bike in 1978, a three year-old 125 that Pierre Karsmakers and then Bob “Hurricane” Hannah had ridden.  Eventually, in 1980, he managed to buy a current Mugen works bike, a highly modified Honda, for $4,000, which was then a lot of money for a 125cc motorcycle.   Good married young, had a large family and became a successful businessman, but he always kept his interest in motocross. He ran a successful racing team, imported Mugens and motorcycle components and after he became successful as a trader in the futures market, he began the hard work of tracking down and collecting the most famous works bikes from the 1970s and 1980s.  Over the past few decades, Good’s obsession with factory race bikes has enabled him to create a collection of one championship mount after another, as well as restore each of them to their championship-winning condition.

The final step in Terry Good’s works bike obsession was to document the collection that he had assembled so that others can enjoy the fruits of his laborious hobby.  The result of a years of research, interviews with riders and mechanics and countless photography sessions is the 160-page Factory Motocross Bikes, where he documents each of the bikes in his collection – or at least the ones he had when the book went to print, for he seems to have an insatiable appetite for these factory specials.

The book is softcover and in a “landscape” format that suits its subject.  It begins with Sten Ludin’s (the most prolific race winner in World Championship history) 1961 Monark/Lito, and each motorcycle has its own chapter, which usually consists of a number of images of the restored bike, some period photographs and a nice recollection by the rider.  It would have been interesting to have a 1960s Rickman-Metisse or CZ included, but it is Mr. Good’s collection, isn’t it? The next bike is Swede Torsten Hallman’s Yamaha YZ637 from 1971, followed by a 1972 Suzuki RH72 that the great Joel Robert rode, and then the Suzuki RN72, a 500cc “Open Class” motocrosser that the legendary Roger DeCoster rode to one of his World Championships.  The bikes continue throughout the 1970s and 1980s with more Suzukis, Bob Hannah’s Yamaha’s, then many exotic Honda works motorcycles, each of them described in detail so that the reader knows what made them special and how they were to ride from the rider’s seat.

Through these exotic motorcycles, which were sometimes so special that none of the major components interchanged with a showroom model, you can trace the evolution of the motocrosss bike.  The narratives on each motorcycle explain the increasing power of the two-stroke engines, the “lay-down” shocks and the “monoshocks” that revolutionized rear suspension design, the “long travel revolution” where forks and suspensions gave riders the ability to absorb ever greater jumps without slowing down and the introduction of the light-but-stiff one-piece monocoque frame.  Each of these developments, which were prototyped on the mystical “works bikes,” soon made their way to the production motocross motorcycles.  Only the exotic materials like magnesium and titanium and hand-lightened components rarely found their way down to the competition bikes you can buy on the showroom floor.

The book tells the story of these bikes well and if you are one of the late baby-boomers that grew up with these bikes or who read about them in the pages of Cycle or Cycle News, you’ll find the story of the development of the first single-shock suspension and the “claiming” of Marty Smith’s works bike at Hangtown fascinating.  Otherwise, anyone with a technical interest in bikes or racing or an interest in motorcycle history will enjoy the story of Good’s collection.  It is probably too specialized a book, however, for someone with a casual interest in motorcycling.  I would have enjoyed  reading about more 1960s bikes and an appendix with technical specifications of each motorcycle and their race results, but these would be my only quibbles.  Legendary Motocross Bikes was a welcome surprise, an excellent addition to my motorcycle bookshelf.

Rating: 5 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

Steve McQueen: Early 1960s Photographs of a Man in Motion

Steve McQueen

by William Claxton

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

William Claxton’s book of photographs of Steve McQueen seems to sell primarily to men, especially automobile and motorcycle enthusiasts who consider McQueen the epitome of 60s cool.  I think one factor in the actor’s lasting appeal may be that he resisted the urge to “go hippie” in the 1960s.  Instead of growing his hair long and going to India to find himself, McQueen remained in California, where he rode motorcycles, collected bikes and cars, drank beer, smoked a little hemp and bedded some of the world’s most desired women, including Barbara Leigh and Ali McGraw.

Perhaps part of  McQueen’s fame is due to the fact that his image stands in vivid contrast to the “emo boys” of our contemporary society which seems to uncomfortable with healthy masculinity.  It has become so bad that we have to actually import boorish Aussies in order to play roles that call for an American man rather than the 30 year old (see almost any current comedy for examples) Hollywood teenager.  While McQueen was always uncomfortable with fame – other than the steady stream of women it brought him – the blue-eyed actor didn’t drop out until he hit middle age.  After a series of divorces, McQueen spent his final years holed up in Santa Paula, preferring to spend time with his growing collection of antique motorcycles than his adoring public.

McQueen was a member of the legendary Checkers Desert Racing Club

William Claxton is well known in photography circles for his photographs of the trumpeter Chet Baker, the doomed star of West Coast “Cool Jazz” with the matinee idol looks and heavy drug habit.  He shot fashion spreads and created Basic Black, the first fashion film, which starred his wife Peggy Moffitt, designer Rudy Genreich’s favorite model.  Claxton was also a popular magazine photographer, shooting assignments for Paris Match and Life.  On one such assignment, he met Steve McQueen, who was then shooting Love With a Perfect Stranger with Natalie Wood.   It was 1963 and in the wake of the films The War Lover and The Great Escape, the young actor was just starting experiencing the white hot light of incandescent fame.  Claxton and McQueen hit it off, even though the photographer was a sophisticate and McQueen was a rough around the edges reform school kid who became an unlikely movie star.

Claxton found McQueen an ideal subject because he was not self-conscious and he had an appeal for both men and women.  Women seemed to be drawn to his unconventional good looks and intensity, while men found his combination of coolness, masculinity and self-confidence appealing.  McQueen didn’t have a large frame, or conventional leading man looks, but he was healthy and athletic and there seemed to be a sense of menace behind his steel blue eyes.    As an actor, he was not a scenery chewer. He re-acted rather than acted and was able to convey a great deal with his face and body language rather than the historic approach favored by some of our modern actors.

After their intitial meeting in New York, Claxton and his wife began spending time with McQueen and his wife Nellie in California, so the photographer had the opportunity to shoot the actor spontaneously, always using available light.   Because the actor trusted Claxton, whom he called “Clax” he was able to capture McQueen in unguarded moments.  The photos in this book are well framed for the photographer knew when to make the actor the center of attention and when the context was most important.  Thankfully, virtually all of them were in luminous black and white.  There are photographs of McQueen at work, at play with the Jaguars, Ferraris, Cobras and Triumph motorcycles that he loved and just hanging out, which is mostly what McQueen seemed to do between shoots.  The friendship between actor and shooter did not last more than a few years as both lived busy lives, the photographer traveling to far-flung assignments and the actor to film shoots, so they gradually lost touch.  So, Claxton’s photographs cover a fairly brief period, but one where the actor while incredibly famous, was still able to enjoy himself among his friends.

This is a Taschen book, so it is reasonably priced, but still beautifully produced with excellent photographic reproduction.  If you are enjoy photography, are a McQueen fan, or someone who just wants to get a sense of what things were like in a particular time and place, this book is an excellent choice.

Rating: 4 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.

A Big, Glossy, View of the Sleek, Shiny Cars of the 1950s

Automobiles of the Chrome Age: 1946-1960

Book by Michael Furman (Abrams)

Review by Jeffrey Morseburg

Automobiles of the Chrome Age is a big, glossy “coffee-table” picture book dedicated to post-war American and European automobiles.  Michael Furman, who is considered the premier automotive photographer working today, shot the book’s beautiful illustrations.  There is only the briefest essay to introduce the subject, so the rest of the book is images, both panoramic overall views of entire cars and large detail shots of a grille, vent or hood.  There are a number of large double-page spreads, but not as many as one would expect, and some of the single page images are actually quite small because of the tall, “portrait” format of the book. Perhaps an oblong, landscape format may have worked even better for the subject.

The cars included are Alfa Romeos, Aston Martins, Bentleys, BMWs, Buicks, Cadillacs, Chevrolets, a Cisitalia, a Cunningham, a De Soto, Dodges, Ferraris, Fords, a Hudson, Jaguars, Mercedes, MG’s, a pair of Nash products, Oldsmobiles, Plymouths, a Packard, Pontiacs, Porsches, Rolls Royces, a Saab, Studebaker, a Tatra that is a holdover from the pre-war days, a Triumph, a Tucker and the landmark Volkswagen beetle.  The images are not presented as photo essays on each car or even thematically, and that makes the book less coherent that Furman’s usual work.  There is a small description of each car as an appendix, but these are in incredibly small type that may cause eyestrain among the author’s audience, many of whom will be well past middle age.

Even though it is lovingly and lavishly produced, Furman’s Automobiles of the Chrome Age is not a coffee table book that I would recommend for a car enthusiast or as a gift.  Instead, I find some of this exceptional photographer’s other efforts, collaborations like Curves of Steel or Speed, Style and Beauty to be a much more enjoyable combination of essays and images.

Rating: 3 Stars

Copyright Jeffrey Morseburg 2010. Not to be reproduced without prior written permission.