Real Classic - May 2019 - Preview

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Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles

RACER FOR THE

ROAD

LAVERDA L AVERDA S F C TWIN SFC T WIN

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ISSUE 181  MAY 2019  £3.70

BMW R65LS  RE CLIPPER!

WHAT LIES WITHIN

TRIUMPH / LEVIS SPECIAL  BMW R65LS  RE CLIPPER!

ISSUE 181  MAY 2019  £3.70

Running, Riding & Rebuilding RealClassic Motorcycles

RACER FOR THE

ROAD

24

S I D E by S I D E

Riding BSA’s last A10s

MOTO GUZZI LE MANS ............................46

Very fast and very orange. Laverda’s 750SFC genuinely was a racer for the road… well, for road racing at any rate. Alan Cathcart tells its story

This is the Le Mans you’ve never heard of; an extremely special edition, litre-class competitor, capable of 135mph and more. Nolan Woodbury explains how it came to be built almost five years before the factory equivalent…

TRIUMPH / LEVIS SPECIAL.......................24

In its 80-odd years of existence, this motorcycle has had many incarnations. It’s been reborn as a grasstracker, a speedway racer and a hillclimber; a 500 and now a 650.

Odgie investigates…

BMW R65LS..............................................32

Struggling to manage the mass of Japanese multis, Reg Eyre rediscovered BMW’s tight and sprightly 650 twin…

ARIEL NH..................................................40

Ariel’s sporting singles always acquitted themselves well in off-road competition.

This 350 served a quarter century on the muddy stuff and is now relaxing into ‘classic’ retirement. Henry Gregson shares the secrets of its renovation…

TIC! HONDAMA LESS G80  0  MATCH  BSA SS8

ISSUE 180



APRIL 2019

REALCLASSIC 181, PUBLISHED IN MAY 2019

LAVERDA SFC 750...................................... 6

ing, R Runn

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ilding RealC Riding & Rebu

TWO BSA TWINS ......................................54

R

M

THE CONTENTS PAGE ...............................3

Lots of Italians this time. How is this?

Lucky we have Odgie on board to provide a little normality…

Frank Melling certainly woke up a lot of people! Some agree with him, others not so much. And the usual assortment of delight

ROYAL ENFIELD CLIPPER.........................62

Last year, Enfield enthusiast James French found a 350 lightweight single, much like one he owned in the 1970s. Initial impressions suggested that it might benefit from some mechanical attention over winter…

EVENTS ...................................................70

Two pages of events – and there could have been more! Answer this: why, when organisers ask us to advertise their events do they fail to include where and when it takes place? All life is a mystery

HONDA CUB.............................................78

Eager to pass on his enthusiasm for classic motorcycles to the next generation, Stuart Urquhart sought an ideal old bike for a first rebuild project. Cheap, uncomplicated and abundant: a Honda Cub perfectly fit the bill

Martin Peacock had a vision, a conversion on the road to Bude. He understood that he wanted a Commando, and this is how he made it… Part 7: The not quite final touches

rcycles

RC REGULARS

WE’VE GOT MAIL! ...................................14

Subtle distinctions make a surprising difference to two handsome twins.

Frank Westworth explores the pursuit of perfection…

NORTON COMMANDO REBUILD.............86 lassic Moto

R E T E

ER SU P

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LAVERDA L AVERDA S F C TWIN SFC T WIN

READERS’ FREE ADS ...............................74

Just a single page? What’s happening?

Usually at this time of year we get lots more ads. Hmmm…

PUB TALK ..............................................100

On Brighton’s Marine Parade PUB’s cup runneth over…

TALES FROM THE SHED ........................108

It’s a Triumph! Not exactly a triumph with the BSA, but Frank’s found another way to avoid actual spannering…

AERMACCHI BUILD..................................94

Ridin Running, 

MAY 2019

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RACER FOR THE

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ISSUE 181

Stu Thomson has been rebuilding a singlecylinder Aermacchi Ala Azzurra. This time he tackles the electrics and the allimportant paintwork…

!

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E S I D E b y SstI DA10s Riding BSA’s la

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WHO’S DONE WHAT REALCLASSIC is built from bits by Rowena Hoseason and Frank Westworth of The Cosmic Bike Co Ltd in Cornwall, with contributions from RC regulars, readers and rider. Chris Abrams of AT Graphics Ltd makes the pages look simply splendid, while all the other publishing stuff is handled by Mortons Media Group Ltd at Horncastle We’re online at www.Real-Classic.co.uk TRADE ADVERTISERS for the magazine or website should call Helen Martin on 01507 529574, email hrmartin@mortons.co.uk EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES should be sent to Frank@ RealClassic.net or to PO Box 66, Bude EX23 9ZX. Please include an SAE if you want something returned or a personal reply SUBSCRIPTION INFO is on pg114. Call 01507 529529 to subscribe or renew or buy back issues SUBS QUERIES, late deliveries, or changes of address should be directed to 01507 529529, or email subscriptions@realclassic.net ALL MATERIAL in RealClassic is copyright its authors, so please contact us before reproducing anything. RealClassic is printed by William Gibbons & Sons of Wolverhampton. Our ISSN is 1742-2345.

THIS MONTH we’ve been reading THE RETURN OF THE DANCING MASTER by Henning Mankell (nasty Nazis in Sweden shock); EIGHTEEN BELOW

by Stefan Ahnhem (scary serial killer in Sweden shock); METROPOLIS by Philip Kerr (decent copper in decadent Weimar Berlin shock), and THREE BULLETS by RJ Ellory (JFK didn’t die in Dallas shock).

MEANWHILE AT THE MOVIES we were startled by how rubbish SHAZAM! wasn’t; finished the final season of THE BRIDGE and bid farewell to Saga; adored the Korean gangster saga NEW WORLD, and chortled throughout the extremely silly MISSING LINK cartoon. Oh, and we’re on season two of THE EXPANSE: still mesmerised…

RealClassic is published monthly by MMG Ltd, PO Box 99, Horncastle, LN9 6LZ, UK. USA SUBSCRIPTIONS are $58 per year from Motorsport Publications LLC, 7164 Cty Rd N #441, Bancroft WI. 54921. Postmaster: Send USA address changes to RealClassic, Motorsport Publications LLC, 715-572-4595 chris@classicbikebooks.com

FROM THE FRONT Part of my own (very) long-term fascination for old – and strange – motorcycles has been the mysterious ability to become obsessed. It happens all the time. The obsession usually begins when I borrow a bike, ride about on it to write about it later, decide I must have one, and spend the next however long plotting, scheming and generally wasting huge amounts of time, effort and money until eventually I acquire one.

What happens next is seemingly endlessly variable while at the same time grimly predictable.

Although I’d never admit it in public, I do sometimes suffer from buyer’s remorse. Quite frequently, in fact. If you’re happily unfamiliar with this appalling affliction, it’s what happens when after a century or so of ruminating, scheming, saving plotting and finally spending, you ride the thing home and think…‘What? Why on earth have I wasted untold thousands on this leaky hideous gutless brakeless pile of scrap?’Or worse:‘Why did I sell the most wonderful bike in the known universe for this leaky hideous…’and so forth.

More common, luckily, is that the new best bike in the whole world official is at least as good as I’d hoped. But there is no such thing as perfection, so although it’s obviously almost perfect there will always be opportunity for a little improvement.

Maybe solid state sparklers? Maybe a twin-leading front anchor? And, would anyone notice if I replaced all that handsome patina with a pile of stainless fasteners? It would be easy to keep the rusty rotten rubbish and sell it with the bike should I ever… but this is going to be The Keeper, surely?

There then follows a process which is altogether too familiar at RCHQ. Excuses are found to renew old and neglected friendships, mysteriously often with folk who are noted experts in the new machine and who may have piles of parts laying around which they’d rather pass on to a deserving cause than to the scrapyard… And then of course there are spares specialists who can sell special spares which will transform simple perfection into something more – superhero perfection, maybe?

I’ve been down that road: drum brakes become miraculously transformed into disc brakes, bigger, better, more or less carbs appear, along with all the bits’n’bats required to fit them. Engines develop

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fresh new internals, parts made from exotic metals and with CNC machining offering accuracy undreamed of in 1960-whenever. This goes on for years, if you’re lucky: an endless stream of scheming, plotting, planning, spending and fettling.

I know I’m not alone in this because I ride a lot of bikes where their proud owners have accomplished exactly this.

Then what?

Then, sometimes, proud owner – that would be you and me both – rides the bike for ages, delighted at first them pondering whether the original bits worked better… Two common courses of action take place at this point. First, the scenario is that happy owner kept and safely stored all the bits they removed. They refit those bits, only replacing worn-out original bits with NOS if available, modern accurate replacements otherwise. This can also take years. This can be as satisfying and obsessive as the original‘improvement’process.

The second common course is that the bike is suddenly unrewarding. The golden horizon to the golden upland suddenly involves another bike entirely, a stock bike of course, because only once they’re understood that they’d thrown away all the good bits did our owner realise that they were the best bits.

Old bikes need never be boring…

Ride safely Frank Westworth Frank@realclassic.net

THE NEXT ISSUE

RC182WILL BE PUBLISHED ON JUNE 3rd, AND SHOULD REACH UK SUBSCRIBERS BY JUNE 7th

THE

TANGERINE DREAM

Very fast and very orange.

Laverda’s 750SFC genuinely was a racer for the road… well, for road racing at any rate.

Alan Cathcart tells its story

Photos by Kel Edge

U

nlike its much bigger 1970s rivals Ducati or Moto Guzzi, Laverda was never a major standalone motorcycle manufacturer, with the Italian firm’s bike division always just a spinoff from its agri-machinery core business.

But thanks mainly to the passion of Massimo Laverda, who took over responsibility for Moto Laverda in 1964 at the tender age of 25, the family-owned firm produced a stream of high performance models, of which its iconic 750SFC parallel-twin tangerine dream was both the most prestigious to own, and the most successful on the race track. Just 549 examples were built during 1971-76, out of the 19,000 parallel-twin 650/750cc Laverdas manufactured before their mid-70s replacement by the onelitre triples and 500cc twins.

Laverda began life in 1873 manufacturing

6 I MAY 2019

A big twin with a single purpose – to go very fast indeed

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LAVERDA 750SFC farming implements, wine-making machinery and the clocks surmounting the copious campanile bell-towers that are a trademark feature of its Veneto home region’s landscape.

In 1905, founder Pietro Laverda moved his workshop to Breganze, a little town outside Vicenza, where in the 1930s Laverda became one Italy’s leading agri-machinery manufacturers. But with the chronic need for personal transportation in post-WW2 Italy fuelling a booming market for small-capacity bikes, in 1949 this was joined by a separate motorcycle company founded by Pietro Laverda’s grandson, Francesco. He’d begun designing his own such motorcycle in 1947, assisted by one of the company’s engineers, Luciano Zen, featuring a girder-forked pressed steel frame housing Laverda’s own ohv fourstroke 75cc engine, with a fully enclosed chain final drive reportedly to allay the fears of its first customer, the local priest, that his cassock might catch in it!

The Moto Laverda 75 entered production in October 1949, and swiftly gained a devoted following thanks to its robust yet sporting qualities. These were underlined when, almost inevitably, the firm began racing its products in 1951. But, unlike most of his competitors, Francesco Laverda opted to concentrate on gruelling long distance events like the MilanoTaranto and Motogiro, as best displaying his bikes’inherent qualities of durability coupled with performance. It was a philosophy that would underpin Laverda’s entire competition history.

This strategy found immediate success, with

Everything about the engine appears massive to modern eyes, but the quality is clear to see

Laverdas occupying the first five places in the 1410km-long Milano-Taranto single-stage marathon’s 75cc class in 1952, following up with the first 14 places in 1953. The debut of a larger 98cc model saw victories in the 100cc class in 1954 and 1956, while repeated class wins in both 75cc and 100cc categories also came Laverda’s way in the six-day Motogiro stage race. Having proved a point, with the end of such public roads events after the catastrophic 1957 Mille Miglia car race, Laverda stepped back from competition, while continuing to expand its range and production numbers with the debut of its Zen-designed 200cc parallel-twin in 1962 – its first such multi-cylinder model.

With the 1964 appointment as CEO of Massimo Laverda, Francesco’s eldest son and a keen rider who already owned a Vincent

The workplace is both remarkable and remarkably orange. Observe the off-set tacho, and the fairing’s healthy arm-room

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Viewed from the front, the resemblance to Honda’s CB77 is plain, but that’s all it is, a resemblance

Black Shadow and a BMW R69S, Moto Laverda was poised to lead European motorcycle design in a new direction. Immediately after his appointment, Massimo travelled to the USA to spend three weeks examining the burgeoning American market, whose massive potential he was eager to explore. There, he met freewheeling entrepreneur Jack McCormack, whom he appointed as Laverda’s first US importer, and who rebranded Laverdas for sale in the USA as American Eagles. Massimo was the first Italian industry leader to grasp the need for larger capacity models, and on his return to Italy he instructed Zen to design the sohc 654cc parallel-twin which debuted on the world stage at London’s Earls Court Show in November 1966, and entered production in May 1968, producing 50bhp at 6800rpm.

The first in a glorious succession of twins and triples from the Breganze factory, this unit-construction air-cooled design both aesthetically and architecturally recalled Honda’s best-selling 305cc CB77 parallel-twin.

Housed in a tubular steel open-cradle spine frame with 230mm Grimeca drum brakes, the new Laverda motor with its robust five-speed gearbox was employed as a semi-stressed chassis component, and with its horizontallysplit crankcases, Bosch electrics, central chain drive to the single overhead camshaft, sturdy bottom end design with the crankshaft running in four large roller main bearings with one outboard needle roller bearing, and an electric start with no auxiliary kickstart, the new Laverda pointed the way ahead for future large capacity sports bikes, which others would soon follow.

Although in prototype form it featured a Honda-style 180º one-up/one-down crankshaft, this was soon changed to a British-type twoup 360º format, in pursuit of better torque.

Originally both 650cc and 750cc bikes were

MAY 2019 I 7

The frame of the Laverda twins is a tribute to the pipe-bender’s art, of course

offered, but after just fifty 650s were made Massimo decided to concentrate on the 750cc model in response to McCormack’s advice, so when the debut 750GT touring model was joined in 1969 by the 750S with sportier café racer styling, an uprated engine and a new, stronger frame, the first Italian Superbike of the modern era was born.

Considering Laverda’s previous history, it was inevitable the company’s new models would be raced, with Massimo opting to focus once again on long-distance events to demonstrate

A LITTLE SFC HISTORY

his bikes’reliability coupled with performance.

In May 1968 the Motogiro was revived as a gruelling eight-day rally with timed stages and special tests. Four pre-production Laverda twins started the marathon, all finished, and the solitary 650 won its class, with the three 750s all in the top ten. A debut 1969 road race outing in the Oss 24 Hours in Holland proved less successful, with piston problems on all three 750S bikes causing them to fall by the wayside, despite having led the race after 14 hours. Just one was repaired to eventually finish fourth, co-ridden by Massimo Laverda himself and Augusto Brettoni, the rider who’d become synonymous with the marque.

For 1969 the 750S was replaced by the 750SF,

standing for Super Freni (or super brakes).

Besides detail improvements to the engine and chassis, this was fitted with a special 230mm 2LS/twin leading-shoe front drum brake designed by Francesco Laverda himself, aimed at redressing the Grimeca’s tendency to lock up at low speed when cold, and to fade badly once hot. To promote the new model, Laverda embarked on an intensive Endurance racing campaign with a factory team headed

by Brettoni, who won the Monza 500km in May 1970 teamed with Sergio Angiolini, then a month later with Edoardo Dossena headed a triumphant Laverda 1-2-3 sweep in Holland in the Oss 24 Hours. He again teamed with Angiolini to finish third in the last Bol d’Or 24

Alan Cathcart on a Laverda 750SFC in the F750 Classic Race of the Year.

August 1982, Snetterton

The test 750SFC as delivered in mid mid-1972 1972 to Jim Eade’s shop, Ashfield, New South Wales

Chris Cutler working on the 750SFC in his home workshop – with his wife!

8 I MAY 2019

Vic Vassella racing with Dave Burgess on his Suzuki TR500 at Amaroo Park in February 73

Vic Vassella’s first race – also the bike’s – on 26.11.1972 at Oran Park

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LAVERDA 750SFC Hours held at Montlhéry, after their 750SF’s frame fractured four times over the concrete bankings’corrugated surface, and had to be repeatedly welded up in the pits.

To Massimo Laverda, now retired from racing to focus on building the business, this simply underlined the development benefits to be gained by going Endurance racing, so for 1971 he intensified his company’s involvement in this, while also producing a more race-focused model to do so – the 750SFC, as in Super Freni Competizione.

This new model wasn’t ready for the first race of the season, though, so in placing 1-2 in Imola’s prestigious Shell Gold Cup race for Production machines in April, as the forerunner to the first-ever Imola 200 run the following year, race winner Brettoni and privateer runner-up Roberto Gallina both rode 750SF machines – though Brettoni’s works bike already featured most of the engine mods incorporated in the impending new SFC model.

This duly made its 1-2 race-winning debut a month later in Austria’s Six Hours of Zeltweg, with Brettoni winning solo on a 750SFC from

Bruno Cretti on an identical bike, before the new Laverda model took victory once again in the Oss 24 Hours in June, via Hans Hutten teamed with Angiolini.

The Laverda marque’s most prestigious win yet was to come in the July heat of Barcelona, with 750SFC machines finishing first, third and fourth in the Montjuic 24 Horas, with Brettoni / Angiolini leading them home. Loigo / Bertorello scored the first race victory for a customer SFC at Vallelunga the same month, before Brettoni / Cretti finished runners-up in the Le Mans 24 Hours in September, with the season ending on a triumphant note with a 1-2 Laverda victory for Angiolini ahead of Brettoni in the Modena 500km.

It had been some debut season, whose success Laverda couldn’t quite repeat in 1972, although Roberto Gallina teamed up with Moreno Pescucci to take their works 750SFC to victory at Monza, Vallelunga and Modena, and with Swiss rider Philippe Schreyer to finish second in the Montjuic 24 Horas, after teammates Brettoni / Pescucci crashed out of the lead. At Oss and the Bol d’Or both Laverdas retired in each race with mechanical problems, a fate which also befell them both at Zandvoort – this time due to crashes. British rider Ron Wittich tragically lost his life in one of them after falling at the same spot he’d crashed at during the previous year’s race. But in 1973, the Dutch duo of Piet van der Wal and Jan Strijbis won the Zandvoort 6-Hours, to record the 750SFC’s final international Endurance race win. Thereafter it was superceded by the 981cc 3C triple which began production that year, and later by the‘jumping Jota’which

debuted in 1976.

The 750SFC, of which the first 20 examples were built in the factory race shop in May 1971 as part of a total first-year production of 85 bikes, and thereafter in a separate workshop to the main factory, was much more than a bright orange tuned-up version of the 750SF. Its distinctive colour was chosen to make it easily identifiable whenever it passed the pits, especially at night, after lap-charting problems in those pre-transponder days with the more commonplace red and then white livery works Laverda endurance racers previously wore.

While adopting the same overall architecture as previous Laverda twins, each air-cooled electric-start 80x74mm 744cc engine was carefully blueprinted and assembled to racing tolerances. The extensively finned cylinders inclined forward at 20º sat atop horizontally split wet-sump crankcases heat-treated for extra strength, with an integral close-ratio five-speed gearbox, and an oil-bath clutch.

The SFC’s lightened five-bearing pressedup crankshaft and conrods were carefully balanced and polished, and the pistons exactly weight-matched, delivering a higher 9.65:1 compression compared to the 750SF, later raised to 9.9:1 and then to 10.5:1. A larger capacity oil pump was used, and the main and big end roller bearings were uprated to more durable Endurance racing spec.

The drive to the single overhead camshaft, which on the SFC had a special 2C profile with polished rockers, was by duplex chain between the cylinders, with triplex chain primary drive.

The bigger valves – 41.5mm inlet and 35.5mm exhaust – sat at an included angle of 70º in a reworked cylinder head with a redesigned, shallower combustion chamber fed by twin Spanish-made 36mm Amal Concentrics, replacing the SF’s 30mm Dell’Ortos. The substantial car-type Bosch dynamo, weighing a hefty 5kg, was

driven by a rubber belt.

Producing 70bhp at 7000rpm on the factory dyno and each built by a single individual, these motors were carried in a new zinc-coated version of Laverda’s established spine frame.

This used four 40mm diameter tubes clustered together to form a spine from which the motor was underslung as a semi-stressed member, with copious lugs for mounting the footrests etc, as well as the half fairing and 23-litre fibreglass fuel tank (aluminium on the early 1971 bikes, which however had a propensity to crack). Twin Ceriani rear shocks (sometimes Konis) and 35mm fork were fitted, originally with Laverda’s own 230mm front drum brake, although this was replaced by a same size 4LS Ceriani drum on the works racers. The 79

The test 750SFC roadracer alongside the 915SFC racer on which Ken Watson defeated the four-cylinder Hondas to win the 2001 Australian PostClassic Championship

bikes built in 1972 and three prototypes with a further reduced valve angle which comprised the entire 1973 SFC production as the company moved to a larger factory, all carried a redesigned twin-megaphone exhaust featuring crossover pipes under the sump, instead of being splayed out each side, which inhibited ground clearance.

In 1974 the SFC received a serious makeover, to produce what constituted a second generation model. This saw triple 280mm Brembo cast iron disc brakes replacing the drums front and rear to stop a bike weighing 206kg dry, with a lower, longer frame aimed at lowering the cee of gee. There was a slimmer fuel tank and a restyled half fairing, while the fork was upgraded to a 38mm Ceriani, and a 2-into-1 reverse-cone megaphone exhaust was now used for racing.

The engine was also uprated with an even lighter crankshaft and more radical 5C camshaft, plus 36mm Dell’Orto PHB carbs which, together with a new exhaust system, lifted power and revs to 75bhp at 7400rpm.

Some 222 examples of this model were built in 1974, still with points ignition, but starting in 1975 the final 750SFC Elettronica version was produced in two batches – 131 in 1975 and a further 33 in 1976.

These now employed Bosch electronic ignition and a higher 10.5:1 compression ratio, as well as a redesigned cylinder head with altered porting, a flatter valve angle, reshaped

combustion chambers, flatter angled spark plugs, and slimmer, polished rockers, while an oil cooler was now standard.

This first version of the 750SFC Elettronica retained the wire wheels with Borrani alloy rims seen on all SFCs so far, but in 1976 the final run of 33 bikes was made with Laverda’s own cast aluminium wheels. This ended production of the 750SFC, which had enjoyed a brief but glorious moment in the spotlight as Laverda’s flagship product, whose short span only served to increase the allure, mystique and pedigree attached to what is a prized model today. As proof of that, in September 2018 Bonhams sold a 1975 Laverda 750SFC Elettronica in a London auction for £41,400, twice its pre-sale estimate.

Laverda was unknown in Australia until the late 60s, when Melbourne-based Stanco became the importer. Two SFCs were allocated to them in 1972, one of which went to Sydney dealer Jim Eade Pty. Local rider Vic Vassella was racing a Norton Commando, but hankered for something more exotic, so when he was offered the SFC he jumped at the chance. Vassella got it for trade price, on condition that he raced it and put the Jim Eade name on the fairing. However, considering it still cost him $2700 – the same as a hot Ford GTHO Falcon at a time when the Honda CB750 was listed at just $1670 (and a Laverda 750SF at $1795, with the‘cooking’GT model selling for $100 less), it must have taken some nerve signing the cheque!

Vic had already ridden a less potent Laverda

LAVERDA 750SFC

Beautiful castings include the front hub and its brake. ‘SF’ stands for ‘Super Freni’ – check the story for a translation. Hard to argue with…

Right: The super braking extends to the rear drum, too. And yes, that is a licence plate – the bike’s roadworthy

750SF in Australia’s first Formula 750 race at the Oran Park circuit, so he had an idea what to expect, and when a couple of weeks after purchasing it he finished second to a Suzuki TR500 at the same track on his debut outing aboard the SFC, it augured well. He campaigned the Laverda for the next three seasons in Production, F750 and Unlimited class racing, with consistent top three finishes and the occasional win, though getting disqualified from a second place finish at Amaroo Park, after getting caught using the starter button

to fire up the engine in a push-start Unlimited race while still pushing, had him arguing he was being penalised for riding a technically advanced motorcycle! Few other bikes had electric start back then, and the rules didn’t specifically forbid you using it! Vassella raced it on and off for years, then took it with him when he moved to New Zealand in 1978, where no-one knew what it was – they thought he’d built it up himself! But when he moved back to Australia in 1988, the Laverda came too.

Vassella’s bike, engine number 11085, was from the third batch of 750SFCs, referred to as the 11,000 batch (the first two were known as the 5,000 and 8,000, and the fourth discbraked batch as the 16,000). Twenty years after he bought the Laverda, Vic advertised it for sale, and found a willing buyer for the $20,000 asking price in a fellow Italian bike enthusiast, university professor Chris Cutler, then owner of a Ducati 750SS and MV Agusta 750S in pursuit of his ambition to own examples of‘the best three 70s sports bikes’.

‘When I sold the bike to Chris in 1992, I thought I’d never see it again,’ said Vic. Things turned out rather differently!

After many happy road miles on it, Cutler rebuilt the SFC in July 1995 for Historic racing, finding the engine was in pretty sound condition, and to this day it still runs the original bottom end. From then until 2001 the Laverda appeared successfully in BEARS and Historic meetings, mostly with Vic Vassella aboard, as a sideshow to Cutler’s development of the 915SFC racer on which Ken Watson defeated the four-cylinder Hondas to win the 2001 Australian Post-Classic Championship – but that’s another story!

In 2002, Chris moved to Zambia to work, eventually selling the SFC in mid-2003 to Tony

Border, a Victoria enthusiast who performed a high level cosmetic restoration, before selling the result back to Chris Cutler in 2007 for him to ride on return visits to Oz. Canberra-based Laverda owner Steve Battisson, a scientific research engineer who’d caught the Breganze bug big time from his dad, later acquired the original bike from Cutler together with the Honda-beating 915SFC, and it was on a visit to the switchback Broadford circuit north of Melbourne to try out the racer that I had the chance to renew my on-track acquaintance with a Laverda 750SFC for the first time since riding my late mate Graham Boothby’s bike at an early-80s CRMC meeting at Snetterton.

Just a single lap of Broadford was enough to bring the memories come flooding back, for the SFC has a highly distinctive riding position which, once sampled, you never forget. It’s a pretty uncompromising stance, presumably so you could tuck right behind the screen in Endurance races, with your arms in the space between the tank and the lipped-edge halffairing. With the high-set footrests it’s definitely tailored for those with short legs and long arms, with a long stretch around the bright orange fuel tank to reach the slightly dropped Tommaselli clip-ons matched to Magura levers.

The left-hand of these is notably longer than the brake lever on the right, and that’s a factorysupplied option delivering increased leverage to counter the effort entailed in operating in the clutch, which is pretty stiff and heavy.

Fortunately, the sweet-action if rather slow right-foot gearshift means there’s no need to use it working up through the close-ratio five-speed gearbox, but you must use it for downshifts by kicking the very Latin rockingpedal lever with your heel. And on a tight, twisty circuit like Broadford that’s quite an ask,

MAY 2019 I 11

because you must use it relatively hard.

That’s because the SFC motor is pretty unfforgiving by early-70s streetbike standards – this really is a racer with lights. Thumb the starter button to crank it into life, and you’re rewarded with a thrilling and decidedly purposeful roar from the open exhausts.

Using the heavy clutch to get it off the mark requires you to give it lots of revs, and below 4000rpm on the Smiths tacho, offset to the left, which was the only instrument originally fitted to non-US market bikes like this one, nothing much happens. Then the Laverda gradually gathers up its skirts as the rev-counter needle moves round the dial, and from 6000 revs upwards the effects of the lightened crank and various other goodies inside the motor really make their presence felt. I didn’t rev it over 7800rpm out of respect to this Italian work of mechanical art’s longevity, but once you get the singlecam parallel-twin motor wound up, it really flies, with a droning howl from this Italian idea of what a traditional British twin should be like, and then some.

But it’s not remotely forgiving down low, and you’ll pay the price if you let the revs drop too low, as I initially did in the Broadford infield. Then it struggles to get back on the cam, until it clears its throat and resumes normal service from four grand upwards – in which case you need to be paying attention and preferably more or less upright. The

12 I MAY 2019

Metzeler tyres Tony Border had fitted were a good choice in terms of grip, with proof arriving on th he off ff-camb ber lefft lead ding onto the main straight when the power came in strong while I was still cranked hard over.

The rear ME55 Metronic caught the slide and gripped, before catapulting me down the front straight with serious intent. Nice.

The Laverda’s handling is stable and predictable, and it holds a line well, both under power and off it when you start leaning on the brakes. The cable-operated 230mm drums at both ends worked quite well, with good feel and more bite than I’d anticipated. The SFC was also more nimble in changing direction through the Broadford Esses than I expected, though you’re aware at all times that at 200kg-plus, this is no lightweight. But it stopped well from speed at the end of the top straight at Broadford, and though the suspension felt pretty stiff, it didn’t chatter at all on the angle.

Still, the SFC is pretty demanding to ride, because getting the best from it requires a committed sense of purpose. This isn’t a bike you just hop aboard and head for the shops on, it’s a bike where each ride is an event that you have to prepare for mentally, then execute in the way that the Laverda demands. It felt a tight, solid and durable package, although the engine does vibrate quite a bit when wound up hard, even by late-60s Britbike standards. This would be an

issue in Endurance racing, but then of course back then before the Ducati 750SS’s inherent 90º V-twin ballance had d brough ht smooth hed dout performance to the sporting sector, it was par for the course.

And that explains the gorgeous, eyecandy, bright orange Laverda 750SFC’s single season in the sun being in 1971, just on the cusp of the explosion in performance and engineering that the 70s saw in the sportbike sector. Begging the Norton Commando’s pardon, this was arguably the ultimate volume production British twin – made in Italy. The last of a line stretching back to Edward Turner’s introduction of the parallel-twin with the Triumph Speed Twin back in 1938.

By the time of the overhead-cam Laverda’s appearance, the pushrod ohv Triumph Bonneville had been superceded by its three-cylinder Trident sister – just as the SFC would itself shortly be by the Jota – and the phalanx of future UJM fours had just begun massing with the debut of the Honda CB750 and the imminent arrival of the Kawasaki Z1.

The Laverda 750SFC was much more than a fascinating footnote in Italian racing history – it was an important bookmark in the overall evolution of the sporting motorcycle, marking the end of an era of parallel-twin dominance. Henceforth, if you wanted to go anywhere fast on two wheels, there’d be a much wider choice of what kind of bike you did so on…

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506339 RC 13.0x2 LAVERDA OWNERS CLUB

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MAY 2019 I 13

RC readers write, rant and rattle on...

Summat to say? Send your comments, hints, tips, tales of woe and derring-don’t to: RCHQ@RealClassic.net

CEEFER CONTROVERSY

In RC180, Frank Melling was deliciously rude about the C15, even the sporty version.

My memories are different, though maybe rose petals tint my glasses. Mine was the final fling of the C15 as BSA desperately offloaded stock when they brought in the C25 Barracuda 250 with its new frame, squarebarrelled engine and bigger wheels. So they tarted up the C15’s tank, took the egg-shaped chrome headlamp from the Bantam Sports and gave it the name ‘Sportsman’. They even added the flip-up back dual seat to stop the excited pillion falling off as acceleration known only to astronauts kicked in.

So what was it like? Was it porridge with added grey? Well, mine took me from 24,000 miles to 47,000 before I passed it on. The DVLA show that it had an MoT until 2016 so someone has it still. In my time it got through two rectifiers, its stator collapsed near Le Mans, it got through a small end bearing, two sets of swinging arm bushes despite my every 300 miles greasing, a snapped kickstart lever and several tumbles – one by an ex-girlfriend who still gets snappish at the mention…

Otherwise it was very forgiving and always bent back into shape.

Performance? In truth it was similar to Honda’s auntie bike, the CD175, with added rattles and thumps. Still, it took me on regular

14 I MAY 2019

trips for work to France and Italy. Indeed in Italy no Italian ever seemed to commute by bike in winter. (Must they all have used la mamma’s car?) It nipped up in the Juras on a trip to Geneva running foolishly on Fiat branded 30W oil and I got towed to a nearby town by a kind stranger on a Ducati GT750.

It hit 100mph on the clock with me chin on headlight and grinning after I’d upped the gearing on the autostrada to Genoa with a giant tailwind. It took two of us from Milan to Inverness.

In short, there was some spice in the porridge of BSA’s last C15 thanks to the beefing up of the big end bearing and close ratio gearbox and that up-a-size carburettor which BSA added. The sportsman’s mount? In the egg-and-spoon race, maybe.

Charles Esdale, member 1038 Interesting article on the BSA C15. Yes, they were horrible, my first one was built from a tea chest of bits but a later C15T was not a bad ride.

Gerry Duffett, member What is the point of Melling banging on about how awful a C15 is/was? He hates British bikes. I met him 25-plus years ago and he was giving the same opinion then. He’s

a one trick pony, and will make thousands of readers avoid small BSAs. He has nothing further to say, please keep him away from my favourite magazine.

If you want someone who has something relevant to say, try Gordon G May or someone else who has used an ancient bike properly.

Ged Baines, member Frank’s entitled to his view (which I may or may not agree with), just as you are (and ditto). The important priority for an editor is to provide a wide range of views and variety in the subjects.

Frank doesn’t in fact ‘hate British bikes’, as you put it. He campaigned with some success on BSA singles and Triumph twins, back when we were all rather younger, and even today thrashes around on a Manx Norton of some kind. FrankW ‘In Praise Of The C15’: That was a headline from a Classic Mechanics edition in days of yore. I’d yearned for a classic mount, except they were ‘old motorbikes’ then.

However when climbing up the ladder from the bottom rung, my cloth had to be cut accordingly. Larger machines were relatively expensive, even then. My Ceefer came from Shepperton but was no movie star. It was chucked in the back of my clapped-out Astra and unceremoniously whisked off to the west country. The fastest it had ever travelled in its life, I suspect.

Frank Melling has had the undoubted privilege to ride and own all sorts of wonderful machinery. Many, like me, have not. However via 447 VHX I learned so much. I hadn’t a clue when I pulled it to bits, but little by little I learned. I learned about rebuilding Monoblocs, and wiring, soldering, seats and paint preparation and bottom ends (strengthened) and top ends and so on and so on. An unpaid apprenticeship if you like.

The start of a very wonderful journey which made me many friends and many happy times.

Frank should understand there really are many like me who either look back fondly at

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LETTERS their 16 year-old self or in later life entered our hobby as best (cheapest!) as they could.

Often via baby Beezers or Fanny Bees or what have you.

Yes I know that C15s are the butt of many jokes and sneers. They are regarded by many as ‘rubbish’ as per the article. However to a whole gang of us the 250 Star was a way in to a lifelong passion. A door which might have remained firmly closed had the Bonneville been the only motorcycle on the planet.

About to go on the bench is a 1964 B40, the best of the C15 stretches in my view. It’s time to exercise those (basic) skills learned all that time ago. Happy days.

Simon Piant, member 1842

While I wouldn’t presume to question Mr Melling’s knowledge of the British motorcycle industry or its products, I feel I must add a few positive comments on BSA’s C15 in the complete absence of any in the entire six pages of his article, apart from reporting they could be tuned to go ‘ludicrously quickly’ (read on).

I commence my defence using two of the feature’s captions: ‘The SS80 stayed in production until 1965’, and ‘The final bikes were possibly the best’. If it is accepted that the C15’s replacement was the C25, which is credited as being introduced in 1967, there appears something of a lacuna in this BSA machine’s reported date line. While the C15 is shown as still produced in 1966 I suggest its then more powerful replacement was the Sportsman, also introduced that year. A pretty bike with proper brackets supporting a chrome headlight to match its sporty chrome mudguards, equipped with a hump-backed go-faster dual seat and ball-ended levers. Enjoying a steel crank, ball/roller bottom end with much improved lubrication, clutch and gearbox, this was surely

the equal of any other conventional traditionally designed British 250 single of the time.

Such a beast was my first motorcycle, purchased five days after my 16th birthday from Gray’s of Wolverhampton for £145-19s or, as advertised, 139 guineas, as all the best pedigrees are priced. A 1966 three year-old model, LDH 166D remains the newest bike I have ever owned. Perhaps also something of a record, within a very short time I was obliged to take a three month sabbatical from riding it at the insistence of the Local Petty Sessions Division – obviously, a gross miscarriage of justice only slightly affected by my guilty plea and an incorrect-from-purchase front brake cable.

The enforced break was put to good use however, with the savings from my paper round financing a superb gas flowed polished / ported head with new enlarged valves and guides, expensive S&W valve springs, a 10:1 compression piston, and swept-back exhaust pipe all courtesy of Gander & Gray. To this was added one of the newly introduced Dunstall Decibel silencers, topped off by an infamous 1 1/8”Wal Phillips ‘fuel injector’. I even improved the lighting with a small Cibie headlamp unit.

The revised bike went like stink, which was the only way to ride it, as with my relatively inexperienced mechanicing skills the ‘fuel injector’ was an all-or-nothing device defying fine tuning.

The SS80 and Sportsman were credited on paper with 20bhp at 7250rpm, while the C25, 25bhp at 8250 with claims of 55mph in second and 72 in third. As a 16 year-old with limited mechanical sympathy, those figures were a challenge that on my bike’s standard gearing were often equalled if not exceeded according to my speedometer readings. This led me to write a number of times to BSA, who for some reason suggested I should fit a rev counter to prevent my engine blowing-up.

Over the years I have ridden a number of C25 derivatives and none approached the rev-ability, smoothness or power of my supreme Ceefa.

However, having got me through an ACU riding course and my ministry test, despite the cost lavished, it was returned to Gray’s within the year in part exchange for a 1961 TR6R Trophy XUJ157, making me the proverbial 16 year-old on a 650.

But that, as they say is another matter.

Phil Rich, Member 12595 Lots of people wrote in spirited defence of the C15; thanks to all of you. I was entertained to note that while some of the Ceefer’s stalwart supports still own BSA singles, they tended to be later developments – like the Starfire or my B25SS, or more often the B40 or B44. We didn’t hear much from people who own and ride a C15 today.

Strange, that… Rowena

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AN AMC ANORAK

Our Editor is proved right yet again. I have been plagued with a mysterious oil leak on my vastly underrated AJS CSR 650 twin over the winter from the port side cylinder. Having removed the barrel for the umpteenth time to fix the base gasket leak (this was my initial conclusion, as I had fitted a spare barrel to this side, so it had to be the culprit: mating face issues, etc), I decided to squirt some oil down the drain holes and using my compressor with a blow gun fitted, pressurise the return. Eureka, it leaked from the oil gallery twixt the crankcase halves!

This was stated to be the root cause of my problem by our noted expert some six weeks ago on RC Facebook group. I was loathe to contemplate this, as it would incur a complete strip down to repair the leak.

The engine is now ready to go back into the frame, post strip down, ready for the good weather to return. I did take the liberty of lapping the barrel to the crankcase joint though, probably more to massage my injured ego. Thanks again Frank, your expertness has been noted!

James Griffiths, member Eek. I’m always wrong. Are you sure the engine’s not a BSA? Frank W

MAY 2019 I 15

INTERCEPTION! I was lucky enough to have a test ride on the new Royal Enfield Interceptor yesterday, and what an absolute joy it was to ride. Very smooth, with a lovely power delivery and plenty of torque. I thought it handled really nicely and the brakes were spot on. The weight was about the same as the Bullet, and the riding position was good for me. I have a spine injury and there was no pulling on my spine after a few miles, as there was on a Yamaha Fazer that I foolishly bought

a few years ago. It’s all about the footrest / handlebar angular plane dihedral washout ratio with me!

Anyway, I have bought one. I look forward to hearing what you think of it when you have a go.

Paul Hughes Hope you enjoy your Interceptor! You can read my thoughts on a first ride inside the magazine somewhere. Let us know how you get along with it? Frank W

BOMBSHELLS Paul Miles’ take on the Honda CB450 in RC179 is a bit different from how I remember them, at least in this country. Back then Honda had already established a good reputation with the smaller capacity bikes and when the CB450 came out nobody wanted to know. For a start, it wasn’t a full 500.

It had strange valve gear, it vibrated badly and had uninspired styling. The CB72/77, on the other hand, was an absolute revelation to us poor lads struggling with often worn-out British bikes. I had a CB72 in 1962 and it was this bike that made Honda a serious contender in this country. I would buy another one tomorrow – if I could afford it! I suspect Paul’s article was aimed at your American readers and the situation may have been different over there.

Andy Hodby, member 3879 May I correct Paul Miles when he describes the 305cc Honda Super Hawk as having a pressed steel frame. The C77 dream had a pressed steel frame, but the CB77, which the Americans called the Super Hawk, had a tubular frame with telescopic forks.

Great article though, and spot-on otherwise Meuryn Howell, member 1674 As ever, I’m always entertained by how different a bike can feel today, here and now, as a ‘classic’, compared to how it was first received when new. Just to be awkward, I never ever liked Superdreams or CX500s, but know that many of my contemporaries really rated them. I preferred the CB250RS and the VF750S – I wonder whether that remains true today… Rowena

16 I MAY 2019

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