Engine Punk

Running as No.42 on the Saturday at the VSCC meeting at Wiscombe Park, RIP shows off its Morgan ancestry parked next to a slightly more venerable 1924 example. The RIP Special leapt out at me from the pages of John Bateman's Enthusiast's Guide to Vintage Specials . This book is a splendid sequel to John Bolster's earlier tome on the breed, entitled simply Specials , and features some weird and wonderful mechanical contrivances, all built with sole purpose of going fast up a hill. RIP is the minimalist expression of that Holy Grail, the four wheeled motorbike. Actually, RIP is a four wheeled Morgan three-wheeler. Possibly RIP's best view. Tailgaters are not a problem. That doped canvas is what I like best about the RIP Special and gives this little car its name. RIP is rakish For a long time I was given to understand that conversions of Morgan three-wheelers into mere cars never had the desired expectation of improving performance. Perhaps have a diff-less...

Just look at this beauty! As a Vintage Thing it's practically over-qualified. This gorgeous 1000cc JAP v-twin powered, wideline Norton Featherbed won best competition bike at this year's Calstock Bike Show and when they fired it up in the tent there were huge grins all round. It sounded like a racing Morgan trike, which isn't surprising since they use the same engine - really crisp and nothing like the "potato, potato, potato" of a Harley V-twin. These engines also went into Brough Superiors and many Shelsley specials. John Bolster used two of them chained together in Bloody Mary and went on to use no less than four of them in the ultimate Bolster hillclimber. However, the resulting 4-litre eight cylinder monster proved too difficult to start. Without electric starters, bumping it was the only way to do it and if one engine didn't catch it just right, the shocks to the chain transmission system would snap the links easily. As for the frame...