Peter Williams: Godspeed
Innovator, engineer and multi successful racer Peter Williams was a unique mix of talent and lack of confidence. A skilled competitor more at home beating the track and getting the best from his bike than he was going elbow to elbow with his fellow racers…
The achievements of Peter Williams as a motorcycle engineer are remarkable; he was instrumental in the development and adoption of disc brakes, alloy wheels, tubeless tyres and the twin-spar frame, breaking new ground with independent and innovative thinking.
But as a rider he was equally outstanding; there was a
British Championship, a TT win, two North West 200 wins, a Grand Prix win and top British rider at the 1973 Transatlantic Trophy. But the second places are telling too; he was seven times a runner up on the Isle of Man at a time when the sport was dominated by Mike Hailwood and Giacomo Agostini on multicylinder MV Agustas and Hondas.
In truth his two outstanding talents were interwoven; it was the quest for competitive advantage that inspired his engineering, and specifically in keeping bikes powered by two outdated and underpowered engines at the front. In the ’60s, in the 500 class, he was trying to gain an edge with the single cylinder Arter Matchless. Keeping the 750 Norton competitive in the early ’70s led to the monocoque frame, with its fabricated box fuel tanks wrapped around the engine. On both bikes Peter’s engineering goals were the smallest frontal area to reduce drag, and reduced weight. As a rider that meant economical actions; tucked down, arms and elbows inside the fairing. I never saw PW race. As a kid I watched a BBC documentary* that followed him during his Isle of Man winning ride in 1973, on my bedroom wall I had a copy of the 1974 Norton brochure that featured a picture of him astride the 1973 F750 bike – white leathers, Bell Star helmet decorated with a white ‘W’. The old scooter helmet my grandad gave me was given a ‘W’ too, made with electrical tape.
In his twenties Peter had the appearance of a school prefect rather than a bike racer. Tall and skinny, with a mop of dark hair and specs, but later in white JPN leathers he was definitely cool.
In 1974 the biking weeklies were full of stories about the imminent arrival of the Cosworth engine, a promised ‘British world beater’ that would allegedly keep Norton competitive. In the interim Peter had to ride a spaceframe 750 that season. He didn’t design it and never liked it. At the August Bank Holiday meeting at Oulton Park the tank/seat/ tailpiece unit came adrift and the resulting crash caused the lifechanging injuries that ended his career. Then Norton sacked him from his engineering role before he’d even got back to work.
Years later Peter wrote a column for Classic Bike while I was editor, and I got to know him as a complicated and charismatic man who certainly hadn’t lost his passion for clever engineering. But I never asked him about that last season with Norton. One just had the sense that it was still raw. Not just because of the crash, but the internal politics and the compromises he made that season too.
He died 20 December, aged 81. I’ve still got that 1974 brochure, but I never got him to sign it.
Peter had an extraordinary family connection to the early days of motorcycle racing; his father was Jack Williams, a pre-war Brooklands and TT racer who was chief engineer for Vincent and then Racing Development Engineer at Associated Motorcycles from 1953. His Uncle was Tommy Bullus, a former works rider for Norton and NSU, his godfather was Jock West, who’d ridden a BMW Kompressor to second place in the 1939 Senior TT. His sister is Andrea Coleman, prime mover in the Rider’s for Health charity.
Given his connections you might expect him to have started racing young and been given a privileged ladder to the top. But apparently Jack Williams didn’t want his son to race bikes, and back then young racers made their own way without unlimited parental support. He didn’t start his first race till he was 24 years old. Having failed his A-levels he began his engineering life as a day release student working in a drawing office. Commuting on a 1938 Velocette between home, college and work in the snowy winter of 1961/62 he fell off 31 times but developed an understanding of the riding benefits of relaxed inputs and a calm approach. Road bike exuberance led to the racetrack, initially practice days at Brands Hatch on the
Velocette and then a job at Ford allowed him to buy a tired 350 Norton on which he finished fourth in his first race at Snetterton in 1963. He joked that Henry Ford was his first sponsor. His dad’s contacts got him the loan of a sluggish Matchless 250 road bike for the 1964 Thruxton 500-mile race and he and his friend Tony Wood brought the bike home a remarkable seventh overall and first in class with canvas showing through the rear tyre. That success got them an entry in the 24 hour race at Montjuïc Park and the first European excursion in a Ford Thames van. 1964 was also the year of his first visit to the Isle of Man for the Manx GP.
In 1965 he first raced for sponsor Tom Arter on the Matchless specials that achieved astonishing results for the rest of Peter’s racing career. Their first win together, using a 350 engine, was at Mallory Park in 1965. In 1966 the partnership won the North West 200 (500 class) on their first time at the circuit and then went to the Isle of Man to tackle the TT for the first time, finishing an incredible second to Agostini on the MV Agusta in the Junior (350) race and seventh after electrical issues in the Senior.
In ’67 he was second in the Senior TT on the Arter Matchless, by now fitted with disc brakes, this time to Mike Hailwood. At a clandestine meeting with Yamaha top brass to talk about a factory ride he was asked if he could beat Hailwood on the Honda; ‘I said no,’ he told me ‘Can you believe it?’
Peter’s weakness was his lack of self-confidence and inner belief in his talent and worth. Lesser riders would just have lied to the man from Yamaha, or have had the arrogance to genuinely believe it possible. That lack of belief affected him in races too. He acknowledged that he didn’t really like the cut and thrust of the battle with other competitors, what he loved was the challenge of the circuit and getting the most from the bike. The Isle of Man, and ideally a solitary race with himself, was a perfect platform for his talents. He hated slow corners too. He continued to race the Arter Matchless, now on alloy wheels (and with the nickname ‘Wagon Wheels’) and running without inner tubes to reduce unsprung weight. They won the North West 200 again and
‘The Isle of Man, and ideally a solitary race with himself, was a perfect platform for his talents. He hated slow corners too’
the British Championship in 1970, and he rode a factory 350cc MZ to win the Ulster GP, then a world championship event in 1971. It was a suggestion of what he could have achieved in GPS if he’d answered the man from Yamaha differently.
By this time he was also working for Norton, developing a racer using their outdated pushrod twin, just as the Formula 750 class was emerging as a colourful alternative to the MV
Agusta dominated Grand Prix classes. In 1971 the Norton was uncompetitive, but financial backing from John Player from 1972 allowed some proper development work and for 1973 the team produced Peter’s perfect motorcycle. The 1973 750 Norton produced around 79bhp, compared with the 105bhp of the two-stroke triples in a Suzuki TR750 or Kawasaki H2R. But the aerodynamics were good, it was geared for 160mph at the TT, and was built around Peter’s riding style.
As an engineer Peter was keen on describing the frame as ‘a bracket’, and he wanted components to serve more than one purpose in order to reduce weight. He had already developed pannier fuel tanks for the Arter Matchless (and his father had also used them on the AJS Porcupine and 7R race bikes in the 1950s) to lower the centre of gravity and reduce frontal area. On the Monocoque he used similar tanks, wrapped around the engine, to connect the headstock with the swingarm pivot, creating a twinspar design fabricated in steel.
Riding the Monocoque Peter was top British rider at the Easter Transatlantic races, won the five lap F750 TT with a 107mph fastest lap, and took the chequered flag at another 11 international races that season. Victory at the Isle of Man was the big one, though he described the F750 race at Silverstone in August as his best race. He led a grid of far more powerful two-strokes and Bsa-triumph triples round the high speed curves of Silverstone before fuel starvation in the final laps robbed him of victory.
There were other disappointments. The pairing led the Motor Cycle News F750 Championship from the first race, only to lose out to Barry Sheene at the last event of the season at Brands Hatch. In his biography he talks about this ‘tripping a switch which began the decline of the John Player Norton crusade.’
There was a lot going on in the background too. Norton had effectively been merged with Bsa-triumph to create Norton Villiers Triumph, an unwieldy and underfunded enterprise plagued by the lack of a clear strategy and by politics. Some of that confusion spread to the race team.
Norton were waiting to take delivery of the Cosworth developed engine to power new road bikes as well as the racer; the engine was late, and when it did arrive it was overweight and hugely compromised. Meanwhile a shift of balance in the race team resulted in the 1973 Monocoque being replaced, against Peter’s wishes, by a spaceframe bike with compromised weight distribution caused by having to put the fuel in a tank that stretched back to the seat hump. And the 1974 twostrokes were much better.
It was an unhappy season that ended in tragedy. At the August Bank Holiday meeting at Oulton Park the tank seat unit on Peter’s bike came adrift, tipping him off. The resultant crash caused injuries that ended his racing career.
‘As an engineer Peter was keen on describing the frame as “a bracket”, and he was really keen for components to serve more than one purpose’
After racing there were successful spells working on engine development at Cosworth and Lotus, and he used his expertise to design a new camshaft for the Norton Commando. With his enthusiasm for motorcycles re-ignited he developed a Mk2 Monocoque that used the latest carbon fibre technology to provide rigidity. No manufacturer took it up, but a Williams framed electric bike finished 5th in the 2010 TT Zero race.
There aren’t many people who have won a TT on a bike they designed themselves but, rather than the trophies, it’s Peter’s influence on motorcycle design that is his greatest legacy. He’d despair at the weight and bulk of some modern bikes though. Godspeed.
Race of the Power Bikes; find it on Youtube