More on the character, Chic Parr
I am hoping there will be others who may have more information about Chic Parr for James Allium of Hinckley, than I do. Chic was indeed quite a character and I first knew of him in early 1960 when I was assisted into road racing by another Leighton Buzzard racer, Roger Hunter.
Through Roger I met Junior MGP winner Dave Williams, Sid Mularney, Phil Read etc and used to spend a bit of time chatting to Chic in his first workshop in Stanbridge Road. Chic was an excellent motorcycle engineer and tuner and was heavily involved with Velocettes and was a close friend of the Goodman family.
Chic’s own best known racing machine, the Parvel, was his converted 250cc KTT based Velo that was ridden to many successes, mainly by Keith Powell who unfortunately has recently passed away. Keith, an excellent machinist, would have been the very best source of information regarding Chic and the 250cc Parvel. The 250 Parvel was also ridden successfully by Dave Williams, who I think had a top placing at the Southern Hundred race. I have tried to contact Dave but no luck so far.
I didn’t race between 1962 and about 1968, then dug the old Gold Star out again for another dabble. After a few rides I had an entry for a Racing 50 meeting at Snetterton and Chic, who by then had moved to his new shop in Linslade, asked me if I would like to use his latest creation which was a 350cc Velocette KTT based device with Norton forks, mostly his own frame design, oil tank under frame with some return oil feeding back through the gearbox and into the tank below, coil ignition and, maybe because he was a Yamaha dealer, a Yamaha 2LS front brake (which was later replaced with a Manx unit).
Through his friendship with the Goodmans Chic had managed to acquire some drawings of the, probably prewar, Velocette five-speed gearbox and with the aid of these drawings he built a five speed 'box and this was fitted to the 350cc Parvel. To start with there was no detent for neutral so you had to very carefully lodge it between first and second and hope for the best.
Chic did at one time talk about building a 350cc Yamaha race bike using a road-based engine, but I never heard any more of that.
The next Parvel to see daylight was a 500cc pushrod based machine which I was due to ride but unfortunately Chic was struck down with cancer, and when I returned from a weekend away in the North and went to visit him in hospital I was told he had passed away.
Chic was an expert at whacking the top off beer bottles on his raised bike rack and hitting the rubbish bin with the cap from a fair distance. So yes James, Chic certainly existed and there has been a huge amount of chatter in the last year or so about Chic and his Parvels in the Velocette Owners' Club mags.
Martin Greenland owned and raced the Parvel in Classic Racing for a few years, and I understand that both the 350cc and the 500cc bikes are now owned by a VOC member. The 250 Parvel we think was sold many years ago and was dismantled and rumour has it that it was fitted with a Triumph twin engine, maybe someone can confirm this?
Chic is still sadly missed by the few of us who are left from those great days.