ROB NORTH INTERVIEW
Rob North reveals how he went from building a one-off triple frame for Percy Tait, to creating the entire fleet of rolling chassis for the Bsa/triumph racing team...
How a one-off frame for Percy Tait led to him building a whole fleet of racing chassis
Today, 79-year-old Rob North lives in Southern California, and still works every day in his RN Fabrications workshop in National City, just 15 miles from the Mexican border. There, he continues to produce examples of his iconic frame for the British triples – in racing guise for Classic F750 racing, and even with lights and a starter motor for street use.
At 17 years old, Rob began working for Doug Beasley, builder of special frames for 250cc Velocettes, and it was there that he met Triumph factory tester, the late Percy Tait, who was racing a Beasley Velo in the Lightweight class, for which Triumph didn’t have a bike. The two became friends, and after North set up his own fabrication business in 1967 (as much to support his fledgling career as a sidecar racer as anything) he worked on stiffening up the Reynolds-framed 650 Triumph that Percy was racing. The bike had handling problems caused by the increased power from the factory-tuned engine, and Tait reckoned North’s alterations improved the steering considerably. For the 1968 season, he developed a new frame for another Triumph Percy was to ride.
“In 1968 I was working for myself making frames for speedway bikes and road racing sidecars, says Rob. I’d known Percy for ten years, and after helping with the 650 twin he wanted me to build a complete frame for a factorytuned 500cc. I built two frames which were very similar to the later triples; they seemed to go OK in Percy’s hands.
“I always focused on getting the steering head good and stiff to stop it flexing – that’s why my frames were always so stable. So instead of the Featherbed arrangement where the tubes of the upper cradle sweep around the front downtubes and join the head stem at the bottom, with the front tubes attached to the top of the stem, I’ve always reversed the design, so on my frames the upper tubes are attached to the top of the head stem with the downtubes at the bottom and a bracing strut between the two – they were always really strong around the steering head. “Anyway, when the triple was launched, Percy asked me if I’d build a frame for it for him to race – nothing to do with the factory at that stage, just him and me. I obviously said yes, so he brought me a crankcase and a diamond frame section that he’d found in the cellar underneath the Experimental Department at Triumph. I made up a jig for it, using this upper frame diamond which included the steering head. Percy said where he wanted the engine to be – we moved it one and a half inches further forward compared to the street bike, to put more weight on the front wheel, and the same amount upwards for extra ground clearance with the wider engine. I made the jig with all the dimensions that he asked for using scrap angle iron, because it was supposed to be just a one-off exercise between me and Percy.
“It wasn’t until some six months later that I discovered the diamond part of the frame that I’d been given out of the cellar was an experimental one they’d discarded because it was very steep – and that’s why the first 1970 Highboy bikes had the forks set at 26°. It was too steep, so it fell into corners, although at Daytona it worked alright on the banking for everyone except Mike Hailwood, who
‘I FOCUS ON GETTING THE STEERING HEAD GOOD AND STIFF’
complained it was unstable, and wanted a shorter swingarm. But those American guys were dirt trackers, so they were used to having the bikes moving around!
“The following year, when the Letterbox fairing version came out, I was able to push the steering head out another two degrees to 28°, as well as lower the whole front end two inches, which gave a smaller frontal aspect for better aerodynamics – that’s why they were called Lowboys, and they were super-stable on the banking. The wheelbase was the same as the regular street bike, but the swingarm on the racer was an inch and a half longer than the regular bike to move the weight further forward.
“For Daytona in 1970 I started off making six of the first Highboy frames – half BSAS and half Triumphs, because that’s what the Americans wanted. What happened was that after the first frame I did together with Percy, they did all the testing on it and then they turned around at the end of 1969 in November and said they wanted to go to Daytona the following March – but they needed six bikes altogether, so could I build six frames? And I did – I got them done in just a couple of months using 1¼in T45 tubing for the main frame and 7/8in for the subframe carrying the seat.
“I had no machinery like a tube bender or suchlike – it was all done with a hacksaw, a file, and a bit of ingenuity. I’d fill the tubes with dry sand and plug the ends, then heat them up and bend them up over wooden patterns to handform the shapes – that’s why each of the frames came out slightly different from the others. I’d then bronze-weld everything together in my jig, which located the steering head, swingarm pivot and engine mounts. I never did proper drawings of any of my frames – I just had the key reference points written down while making the jig.
“However, they were leaving for Florida on the Wednesday – and on the Friday before that, Percy came to my shop, and he was all upset because the Americans wanted his bike, so he wasn’t going. I called Doug Hele up and I said: ‘Do you have enough parts for another bike?’ He said: ‘Well, yes we do’. So I set to on the Friday night, and I made the whole bike, including frame and swingarm, from nothing. On Sunday night at one o’clock I took it to the factory, and left it at the main gate. I said: ‘Please can you get this to the racing shop first thing in the morning,’ and by the Wednesday it was on a plane going over the Atlantic. Unfortunately, Percy fell off it in practice, so didn’t race. But that same frame was the one that won the Bol d’or 24 Hours race later that year with Paul Smart and Tom Dickie. “Once they had cured some overheating problems they had at Daytona, the triples started winning races and breaking lap records everywhere, which was very satisfying. For 1971 the oil cooler was moved into the nose of the fairing – the Letterbox fairing that was done over at Umberslade Hall. I only built three or four of those at the time, early in 1971 – but, of course, ever since then that’s the bike people want, especially after Dick Mann won the Daytona 200 on it.
“The Letterbox had the same wheelbase, but it was two inches lower on the steering head, and the forks were correspondingly shorter, too. The Fontana drum brake was good, but the forks would flex in the corners, so I made up some new, wider triple clamps out of sheet steel so they could get twin front discs in. Even being wider apart they didn’t flex in the slightest, so Doug had me make up a set for each bike.
‘IT WAS DONE WITH A HACKSAW, A FILE AND INGENUITY’
“By this time I’d moved the business to Short Street in Nuneaton, and I had eight people working for me, though we were doing exhaust systems for other bikes as well as the Bsa/triumphs. I was making a lot of replicas of the works bikes even back then, and got to the point where I talked to Doug about getting engines so I could build complete bikes, and they OK’D it.
“Then Bert Hopwood [Triumph’s CEO] wanted to buy all my stuff and set me up in a shop at the factory to do all the prototype work for them. But six months later they closed down, so I never got a penny out of it beyond the £145 for each race frame. And to make matters worse, just before they finally stopped racing, I delivered 12 brand new frames and triple clamps to Meriden, but they went into the cellar and I never found out what happened to them. They disappeared.
“The total number of Bsa/triumph Formula 750 frames we built over there in England before I left was 91 altogether. One had a Honda four in it [the Hadleigh Honda ridden so successfully in 1970s UK racing by Julian Soper]. One had a Suzuki 500 twin, but the rest of them were all Triumph and BSA triples. I sold the business and finally went to the Daytona 200 in 1973 to see it for myself – but then I just stayed on here in the USA afterwards. Don Vesco offered to set me up working for him in Southern California, so I headed out here to San Diego, and haven’t left since! “The way the Rob North frame has become such a British motorcycle icon has definitely given me a lot of satisfaction, but the way certain people trademarked my name without my permission, and then go ahead and advertise ‘Rob North this and Rob North that’ without any right to do so, that hurts a little. Still, I suppose on the other hand it gets my name up in plain view!
“I’ve been here in California since 1973, and the fact is that I’m the only one who continues to make the real Rob North triples – not replicas, but continuous production – and I still make the whole thing except for brake rotors, brake hydraulics and wheel rims. I build the whole bike with my own hands, I lay all the wheels up and I do all the painting. It’s all hand-built, and I have access to engines, so somebody can commission complete bikes from me, starting at $40,000 and autographed by me! I even do a road Rob North Triumph with electric start. “There’s a difference between the BSA and Triumph frames because the BSA cylinders are inclined forward by 15°, so the front engine mount is a lot shallower, but the rest of it is the same. The English frames were all made from Accles & Pollock T45 tubing, but the California-built ones made over here are in 4130 chrome-moly steel tube.
“I would like to add just one thing about all the guys that worked in the Triumph race shop. My name’s got attached to the bikes we built together, but it wasn’t just me – it was them, too. They’ve never had the recognition that I’ve had for these bikes – men like Fred Swift, Arthur Jakeman, Bill Fannon, Les Williams, Jack Shemans and, of course, Percy Tait, have been overlooked.
“I do realise that they helped me a tremendous amount, and I’m very grateful for it.”