INTERPLOD ON PATROL

Reading the letter in the March issue from Mark Brett about the Norton Interpol reminded my of my previous life as a motorcycle cop – and I, too, had the unfortunate disadvantage of having to ride an Interplod for work. I remember the stainless steel front disc that didn’t work in the wet, and the flashing single YELLOW headlight – there were no blue lights! The two-tone horns frequently vibrated off, so on the way to a job it was not ‘nee-nah’ but ‘nee… nee… nee’! You had to ride with a pocketful of spark plugs because, when doing an escort job for a slowmoving load, they would oil up, and the exhausts and carburettors had a tendency to work loose and detach themselves due to the vibration, which also caused the glassfibre Craven equipment to ‘star up’. The seat was very hard and the bike had brake and clutch levers that would have given Charles Atlas a workout. The electric start didn’t come close – if it failed on the first attempt, it gave up the ghost. Our maintenance schedule included one full day a week, spent tightening up nuts and bolts, paraffin-washing the chain then boiling it in Linklyfe, and usually a trip to wireless workshops to sort out more vibration-induced radio faults. Is it any wonder that when the R80 BMWS came on the scene there were officers taking the keys home so that no one could borrow ‘their’ BMW? The Interpols were outdated and unreliable, although they handled better than the BMW – but not by much. And you didn’t go home covered in oil when you rode the BMW.

Andy Cooper