TONY SCOTT RIP

Legendary tuner Tony Scott has died aged 74. He tuned bikes for some of the best racers of the 80s and 90s and his machines scooped 30 TT wins and many British championships in that time. Riders such as Joey Dunlop, Steve Hislop, Carl Fogarty, Nick Jefferies and Phillip Mccallen have all won races on his tuned machines. Most notably, the might of Honda and HRC trusted Tony to work on their factory machines and Tony’s name would forever be linked with the V4s, the RC30 and RC45. Tony was even visited by Satoru Horiike – then boss of HRC and designer of the NSR500, VFR800 and 1999 CBR600F-X – when the Japanese wanted to get more power from the RC45. Tony once said to me: “I told them that we couldn’t get the power from the bike. We even tried using off-set bushes for the con-rods to get a different piston angle – all sorts of stuff. That snapped the con-rods but we did get more power. They thought that was the route to go, but I said we needed more compression, something like a 14.3:1 compression ratio. I got onto Satoru Horiike via Dave Hancock at Honda and I told them that they must supply me pistons with the crown un-machined so I can do the pistons myself. It was a strange request for them, but I guaranteed that it would work. I’d already done the head work and that was difficult enough. With the RC45 the cams were straight in the head but with the RC30 they were mounted in a tray, so you could skim the head and jack the tray up, but on the 45 you couldn’t do it.” Horiike-san himself was despatched to visit Tony’s humble suburban home/workshop in Lancashire but he and Hancock couldn’t find Tony’s place as they were expecting to find a large industrial unit! “Horiike-san was smiling as he looked around my workshop and shed – smiling like he couldn’t believe it. With Horiike looking over my shoulder I machined a piston crown in front of him. He smiled and nodded and that was it. With this seal of approval 500 pistons were on their way and the RC45 would make 147bhp on the dyno.” I visited Tony and chatted to him at length 10 years or so ago and found him to be an engaging character whose drive for perfection was not restricted to his immaculate workshop – he wouldn’t allow any other tradesman to re-wire, plumb or build anything in his home as he felt he would do it better and to 100% of his ability. He was an amazing man. CMM wishes to extend our condolences to his wife Marjorie, family and friends.