A 'works' machine
The birth, development and demise of a motorcycle project
While much of the work undertaken by the British motorcycle industry has been well documented, Mike Naish reminisces about a project that he was involved in that many will not have heard of before.
Have I ever told you about the time I was a works rider? This is the story of the development of a machine designed for off-road use in extremes of environment; that was adapted for normal road use, took an Earls Court Show by storm, and then was quietly killed off by big business in the pursuit of profits.
It all started with an Argentinian adventurer with the unlikely name of Spike Rhiando, who in early January 1953 left England with the intention of crossing the Sahara in a semi-saloon twowheeled vehicle of his own design. Following the trip, with its attendant publicity, Mr Rhiando intended to go into production with the machine, but circumstances made it impossible for him to do so on his own. Later that same year, he entered into an agreement with the CE Harper Aircraft Co
Ltd, of Exeter, to carry out development work based on his prototype machine and, with some new ideas, to make it suitable for production.
The Harper Aircraft concern was located at the local Exeter Airport and manufactured sub-contract aircraft parts to Vickers Armstrong, AV Roe, Blackburn Aircraft and English Electric as well as servicing DC3s.
The original company, The Chrislea Aircraft Co, had manufactured its own light aircraft, its most popular line being the Chrislea Sky-van and Sky-jeep. These were ambulance planes capable of being flown in and out of remote grassy airstrips. They were popular in South America and in Argentina in particular, which is where the Spike Rhiando connection starts. The company had some experience of semivolume wheeled vehicle production having, like Greeves, produced under a Ministry of Supply contract, an invalid carriage called a Harpercar from an original design by Stanley Engineering. The car featured a tubular structure, three wheels and a Villiers engine, with handlebar-type steering surrounded by a blue glass fibre body. The techniques utilised in their manufacture was to be leaned upon in the manufacture of the new machine.
To effect maximum stability for the desert terrain, Spike Rhiando specified a long wheelbase with a low centre of gravity, coupled with six inches of suspension movement, both fore and aft. To keep the sand away from moving parts, the engine was to be enclosed by a fairing and forced cooling was to be effected by a ducted fan.
Drawing on their experience gained in the manufacture of the invalid carriage, and I suspect to utilise some common components in order to keep the costs down, some intensive development work produced the first production prototype early in 1954. With the growing interest from abroad and in the home market on the new form of transport called the scooter, the machine was given a name to reflect those attributes, and was given the title Harper Scootamobile.
Sketch 'A'
Bristling with revolutionary ideas for that era, and utilising aluminium castings extensively, the most visually striking aspect of the machine was undoubtedly the fully enclosing fairing, manufactured from a patented material called Rhiteglass. This material was a resin-bonded, glass fibre material of great strength and light weight. The fairing, weighing in at 22lb, was manufactured in two separate mouldings. The forward shell was formed rather like a full racing fairing to enclose most of the front wheel and extended back to cover the rider’s legs.
In it were two Lucas dipping headlights, each of five inches diameter, with a nose between them and number plate below, together with winking indicators. The top of the apron was formed as a fascia behind a deep curved windscreen, and then ran down to the footboards and a good sized tunnel.
The fascia dash panel was semi-circular and was equipped with a speedometer, ammeter, lighting switch and starter button.
Sketch 'B' – the dashboard
About half the front wheel was enclosed by the cowling which was large enough to allow a good steering lock. Attachment of the front cowling to the frame was at five points, including two fixings to plates welded to the front of the frame tubes to provide reinforcement to the footboards. Within the cowling and below the steering head was carried a large (38 ampere hour) car sized battery. The battery tray was hinge mounted to the frame and could be swung down to permit removal for maintenance.
The rear shell, manufactured from a single moulding, incorporated the rubber covered footboards and engine cover, as well as lockable internal pannier boxes, located on each side of the rear portion of the seat. The body widened out behind the passenger’s legs to match the width of the front section, so that it did not conform to the normal scooter style. The complex curvatures of the moulding gave it ample strength without any internal stiffeners being required.
Twin rear lamps and traffic indicators, unusual at this time, complemented the razor-edged styling, which was of the period but without the excesses of fin seen on some American cars of the time.
Air inlets to the engine were through gauze-covered holes through the side. This air was expelled across the engine to exit underneath the machine. The complete rear shell hinged upwards, pivoted from the rear cross tube of the frame, to provide complete access to all ancillaries. A catch at the front with a handle secured the frame in the closed position while a stay was available to hold up the shell like a car bonnet, for maintenance work.
Sketch 'C'
The frame was built almost entirely of trepanned and welded 16 and 17 gauge
T45 aircraft quality oneinch tubing, and weighed 28lb. The complete frame was cadmium plated for decorative as well as for protective purposes. A feature of the frame was the crossover-tube and gusset-plate bracing of the steering head, not unlike the Featherbed frame of a famous marque to come later that decade. This replaced an early feature where the headstock was bolted to the frame so that it could easily be removed, together with the forks. The two vertical loops which took the weight of the seat were supported by an H member, the base of which sat on a square section cross
tube behind the power unit. The rear wheel suspension was a monoshock swinging arm controlled by a torsion bar of laminated construction and patented as the Lamibar. This was effectively two leaf springs enclosed within a two-inch-diameter tube. The spring ends were attached on the near side of the spring torsion plate, and at the offside to the rear forks via the torsion tube. Total rear wheel movement was seven inches. There was a multi-position mounting of the torsion bar anchorage to cater for heavy or light loads.
Sketch 'D'
An optional extra was the facility to install a Rotoflo damper unit between the right-hand end of the pivot tube and a plate on the frame. The arms of the rear pivoted fork were of 14 gauge in a rectangular section and were welded to the pivot tube. The tube itself was carried on two Oilite bushes housed in cast aluminium brackets bolted to the square section tube (behind the power unit). Slots in the fork arms, with screwed adjusters, took the wheel spindle. The telescopic front fork was to a Harper design and was grease filled and undamped. The deeply flanged yokes and slotted fork ends were manufactured from cast aluminium.
Sketch 'E'
The steel slider tubes ran directly into the stanchion tubes with both parts having hardened and ground sliding surfaces. The exterior of the stanchion tubes were cadmium plated. The internal springs were anchored at both ends so that they could be extended as well as compressed. Total fork movement was five inches. The speedometer drive from the front wheel was by external meshing of two fibre cog wheels.
The power house was a 197cc Villiers Mk 8E three speed engine-gear unit. At the front of the crankcase, an aluminium casting was attached, forming a cradle for a Lucas 6v starter motor. The front end of the casting sat in a channel section bracket welded to the right-hand forward cross tube of the frame. The starter motor was driven by a V belt on to the body of the flywheel magneto. A cast aluminium centrifugal fan was mounted outboard of the flywheel and fed cooling air through ducting on to the cylinder barrel and head.
Gear changing was achieved by means of a pivoted rocker tandem pedal on the right footboard.
Sketch 'F'
Pressure on one pedal gave upward changes and on the other downward changes. Movement of the pedals was transmitted to the gearbox by rods and linkage system. Final drive was by half-inch pitch chain and the overall gear ratios were 4.78, 6.4 and 12 to 1. The 12-inch wheel construction was rather unusual and, in normal scooter fashion, the wheels were interchangeable.
Two ball journal bearings were housed in a cast aluminium hub. To the three armed flange was bolted a steel spider, and beyond the spider a six-inch brake drum. The outer end of the spider arms bolted to the well of the 12-inch diameter wheel rim. Production models reverted to a pressed steel central disc to reduce the cost base. By removing the bolts around the periphery, the wheel could be split to remove both cover and tube. Tyres were 12 x 4.00.
Twin fuel tanks with a combined capacity of three gallons were linked by balance pipes and mounted on the frame loops behind the engine. Access to the filler cap, petrol tap and carburettor tickler were by hinging up or removing the 22-inch-long dual seat.
The handlebars were adjustable for height, bicycle fashion; all other controls were conventional. The machine sported a tubular stand mounted towards the front of the frame from which the machine was designed to be ridden off when starting. Tubular bumper bars at the front and rear were a feature of the prototype but were dropped for production.
Wheelbase was 58 inches and weight 300lb, not least because of the large capacity car sized battery, but also of the starter motor. The proposed colour schemes were to be black, white, red, yellow and blue in metal lustre paint with two-tone colour schemes to special order.
Two bikes, a red and a blue model, were shown at the Earls Court Show in November 1954, and created such a sensation that it was difficult to get to the stand which was located next to another first-time exhibitor, Montesa. Initial pricing was £148 plus £27 10s purchase tax making a total of £175 10s, not cheap when the price of a new Matchless G3L 350 was £170 8s, a James Captain £124 16s and a Lambretta £149 17s 6d. In today’s parlance, the Mission Statement or the aim, was ‘To provide weather protection and ease of cleaning, combined with good appearance.’
Geoff Duke inspected them and said he was impressed and that all bikes ought to have electric starters.
Coming away from the show with a full order book was something the firm had never anticipated. Although much effort for a small company had been expended by a small band of enthusiasts, little thought had been given to mass production and some mild panic set in when, following favourable write-ups in the weeklies, enquiries started flooding in on top of the show orders. Some production tooling was made and a total of four pre-production models were produced over a period of 18 months. Things were to take a different turn however because the company made a decision not to manufacture. The rumours on the shop floor were that the industrialist Enrico Piaggio, who controlled the Vespa works in Italy and who had been seen showing interest in the model at the show, was concerned at the considerable interest shown in the machine from the public, and had purchased the project, only to then kill it off – the reason being to concentrate and focus public awareness in improving his Italian-designed scooters in a rapidly expanding market. Piaggio and his Vespa works employed 3500 people in
1953, 60% of whom rode the company’s products to work. With this solid base behind him, his aim was to secure a good slice of the UK market.
Possibly they looked at the design and manufacturing costs and made a decision based on expected profits, or maybe it was the cheapest option to dispose of the opposition. I expect there is a basis for truth somewhere in those rumours.
The four pre-production models languished on in the stores until 1961, when the decision was made to sell them. It was said that seven years after manufacture was the limit of liability the firm had for the supply of any spares; consequently the machines were only sold to employees of the company, because of some difficulty in certifying their origin for registration purposes. One went to a factory manager for his son, one to the shop foreman, one to the works union convenor and as a concession to the 80odd employees who were muttering about favouritism, one blue model went to that year’s apprentice – me! They took £1 a week from my weekly wage of £2 3s 6d, for one year. With one pound for my mother for board and keep, and 2s 6d for a gallon of petrol, it left me a shilling a week to have a riot on. Well we all know how much change we had after a visit to the pictures, a couple of pints and a bag of chips! Looking back, I don’t remember feeling hard up, anyway there was always a bit of overtime for the cheap labour that I presented. To have a bike that was brand new for £52, that probably cost in the order of £5000-plus to manufacture in the early Fifties (£100,000 at today’s rates), was another good reason to go for it.
So what was it like to ride? The long wheelbase and low centre of gravity coupled with the 71⁄2 inches of suspension gave a very smooth and controlled ride. There were times when crosswinds caught the big curved screen and dustbin fairing, causing the rider to weave, giving passing motorists heart failure and thus me a wide berth. The machine, however, was certainly an eye catcher which I suppose at 17 was probably important to me. It wasn’t regarded as a scooter but rather as a racing machine with a dustbin fairing. The weather protection was extremely good and in wet weather the airflow directed the rain around the rider and passenger, the updraught over the screen providing an invisible barrier to falling rain at anything over 25mph. I had seen photographs of one model with a glass fibre roof attached to the top of the screen and extending down to the rear fins, similar to the BMW scooter on the market. There were no sides to it, rather like a step-through. At the time I recall that I was trying to decide on whether to buy a Tiger Cub or an Ariel Arrow as my first proper machine when the chance to purchase the firm’s product at a reasonable price, and HP at no charge, came up.
One of the main testers and developers of the machine was ex-South West Scrambles Champion (in the Fifties, on a James), Arthur Brown. Arthur incidentally was seen riding his James in the last Farleigh
Pre-65 Scramble, and he was in his 70s. It was Arthur’s enthusiasm for both trials and scrambles that set me off on my sport of trials, and it was my good fortune that I came into contact with him, and another rider, Bob Melhuish, during my apprenticeship. Two individuals whose every fibre and living moment were for competition motorcycling.
Their enthusiasm was catching and they soon had me off at the weekend watching scrambles and trials. The very first event I went to watch on the Scootermobile was the International at Glastonbury in 1962. To see Bickers and Halman doing wheelies down the big hill at Tor was the most significant moment in my life, for I knew in an instant that I could never do it. Had I started at a club scramble I might have been drawn into the scrambles field, but at the Glastonbury pace? Never. The following week however I was directed to a trial that was within a couple of miles of my house. Arriving at the given start area I could see no crowds like
I had the previous week at
Tor and thought I had been misdirected. Soon a young man in a riding suit came walking up the green lane towards me. I asked where and when the next race was on. He looked at me curiously and said that the trial was down the lane and across the field. Having parked up and wandered across to a section to watch a couple of riders I soon gathered what a trial was about. My first thoughts were, ‘now this is something I can do.’ Fifty-seven years later,
I am still riding in and enjoying trials.
I was hooked, and the Scootermobile was used for a further 18 months as transport to work, eventually being sold to one of the other four owners for spares backup. A week after watching that first trial, I was the proud owner of a 1954 DOT trials and my interest in bikes had taken a different course – an interest which has lasted unabated and given me immense pleasure over the years, from the characters I have met, to the secret woods and valleys of my adopted county of Devon (I was born a Somerset lad and know how to chew on a straw) that I would never in the course of a normal life, ever have visited. I have never looked back or regretted that initial decision, which undoubtedly directed, in some part, the course of my life.
As for the Scootamobile, I have never seen another model from the day I sold mine. The Aircraft Co folded sometime during the late Sixties or early Seventies and the hangar which supported a happy band of enthusiasts is now a Carpet Warehouse. I’d moved on to Rolls-Royce by then, as engine development had got into my blood.