MY PART IN THE LC STORY: Mick Ofield, designer

“I was working at Norton (NVT) in the late 1970s, not long out of design college. We had some great projects and plans – think: Cosworth, then the rotary – but we were cash strapped and so we were doing anything to make money, even making mopeds, and things like the Ranger (kids’ dirt bike). As part of that drive for cash we were doing consultancy work with Yamaha Europe, which up to that point had included one-off projects like a Bengt Aberg motocross replica and a flat–track styled XS650.

“The LC project came to us disguised as a design brief for a 125cc two-stroke twin, with Paul Butler seeking sketches of what it could look like. Bob Trigg – who later went to work with Yamaha – communicated with Yamaha, not me, I was just a designer – there was a lot of middle management back then!

“I was road racing myself back then and had been quite taken with the design of Kent Andersson’s TZ125 GP bike, which had a stepped and scalloped tank, and that was the starting point of my design input. At that time the Japanese were designing bikes b that were being branded b UJMS (universal Japanese motorcycles), and weren’t really thinking outside o the (aesthetic) box, so s to be involved in creating what w looked to be a whole new kind of machine, water-cooled and racerinspired, was amazing. Incidentally, the italic wheels didn’t come from me, I was imagining Yamaha continuing with their existing cast wheels, or something like the Campagnolos that were popular in racing then.

“The designs went away to Amsterdam and that was pretty much the end of my involvement. There was no communication after that – just the surprise when we saw the bike at the Paris show. There were so many aspects that came from our work at Norton. My time at Norton was over, I saw opportunities – and a nice lifestyle – in the USA so emigrated and worked on military projects there. I carried on racing with TZ Yamahas and moved on into Battle of the Twins. Today I pen illustrations of classic bikes and race bikes.”