PANTHER ELECTRIC
A sporting stroker from Yorkshire! Martin Peacock discovers the rare delight of a self-starting twin
A Little Red Racer! A sporting stroker from Yorkshire. Martin Peacock discovers the rare delight of a self-starting twin
Sometimes, just once in a while you come across a bike that is a real gem. Not one of the gleaming elites from the glorious past of British bikes but something special, unique even. This particular gem started life as a little-regarded model, albeit from a well-known maker, but was transformed into one man’s realisation of the bike his 16-year old self would have wanted. A learner-legal café racer.
The bike first caught my eye when it joined our motley collection of old bikes and riders gathering in Whittlesey, deep in the Cambridgeshire Fens. From there, our happy band spent the day riding some of the county’s delightful lanes on the VMCC Anglian Section’s Hobson’s choice Run. This took us sixty miles or so south, over the great chalk escarpment of Royston Heath, before turning north near Baldock; a seemingly unremarkable town but one founded by the Knights Templar with a name derived from ancient Baghdad. Historic curiosities aside though, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the little bike’s ability to cover the ground. Not quickly with a drama-free 45-50mph, enough for those meandering lanes and allowing full enjoyment of the countryside.
The clincher was watching it start with the turn of a key while the rest of us staged our usual kickstart choreography. Alchemy, it surely must be: 60s British bikes did not have electric start, did they? Well this one did, and to sum up, what we have here is a delightful 250cc café racer with electric start from a marque better known for its large capacity, single cylinder sidecar tugs. I just had to tell the story.
Like the best of stories, this one began long, long ago in 1986 when its current owner bought a 1965 Villiers 2T powered Panther model 35ES Sport for £95. The ‘ES’ was courtesy of a SIBA Dynastart, a well tried, integrated system reliable enough to forgo a kickstart altogether.
Here I must state that the talented owner and creator of this delightful machine wants to remain anonymous. For this reason, I have referred to him obliquely as the owner, proud owner even, and similar sobriquets. No doubt
some of you will recognise the bike and I ask that you respect his desire for anonymity.
The project started out as a collection of bits accompanied by a log book. It lacked a seat and other important parts needed to recreate the gleaming machine that left Phelon & Moore’s Cleckheaton works back in the mists of time. The solution was to build it as the bike that, in the owner’s words: ‘Would imp press my 16 year-old self.’ Re ecall the sixties if you ca an,
the bike that really y impressed the L-plate brigade and many besides was the Royal Enfield Continental GT. That set the stage for this charming special: a 250cc café racer, in red with ace bars, rear-sets, flyscreen and a racer’s humped single seat. Most projects take time. This one was no exception but, having survived a house move, the project finally got under way in 2001. There was much to do including spray painting the frame and tinware, including the Speedwell tank, forks and d various bits and
bobs. A striking two-pack ‘Radiant Red’ was chosen for the overall colour with silver for the mudguards to give them the right look if not the lightness of alloy.
The seat is a prime example of the painstaking work that went into the build. It was fabricated from steel sheet with the hump made up of a series of curved strips welded together and sanded down to a smooth finish. The hump also serves as a toolbox so the original can house a marked bottle of two-stroke oil.
A departure from the 60s café racer mindset was to leave the engine in standard tune but beef up the front brake. Safe riding is, after all, not so much a matter of how fast you can go but how quickly you can stop. Thus the original 6” SLS brake was replaced with a Yamaha TLS front hub picked up at a Newark Autojumble.
This was not a straight swap and required some machining to remove 5mm from the central boss to fit between the fork legs. The next step was to make up an alloy block to mate with the left fork leg’s torque anchor lug and braze it in place. The result was an excellent front brake with stopping power to spare. I have ridden this bike and it really does stop with ridiculous ease and control. So much more impressive than the Continental GT’s bacon slicer wheel trim.
Other items fabricated for the build were the relocated rear brake pedal, welded gussets to support the footrests, as well as numerous brackets, spacers and other parts to make it all fit together. The original Sport models had a flyscreen but this was one of the many missing items, so the one you see is a replica fabricated with the same care and attention as the other items.
The electrics were already 12V through the SIBA Dynastart set-up but the wiring wasn’t up to much. Our man measured out the cable runs and built a custom loom using the timehonoured board and pin technique, finishing with a non-adhesive tape wrapping and ends sealed with heat shrink sleeves. The loom included separate earth wires rather than relying on the frame as the return current path. Some effort and ingenuity were needed to graft an extra terminal onto the Dynastart regulator to provide an ammeter connection that bypassed the heavy starter current. The final touch was fitting of a heavy duty AGM battery.
Rather than try to find an original, working speedometer, the drive was blanked off and an electronic bicycle speedometer fitted in the headlamp shell. Very neatly too, I hope you agree. The new exhaust from Villiers Services was too noisy (something I do not recall being a problem my 16 year-old self worried about), so more fabrication work was needed
to make and fit a baffle tube.
The bike was on the road in 2002 but there was too much mechanical noise from the engine, which just goes to show that a quieter exhaust isn’t always a good idea. Eventually this became bothersome enough to remove and strip down the engine. Badly worn main bearings were duly replaced, along with the crankshaft seals to forestall future problems with the bottom end. Not that replacing the seals was straightforward. It required making a jig to align the crankshaft halves and seals so they could be pressed into place.
This was 2004, and our intrepid owner now had a spiffy, mechanically sound and reliable café racer to enjoy both on club runs and general bimbling around the lanes. This happy state lasted several years until he was hit by a van while negotiating a roundabout. Fortunately the rider was not badly hurt but suffered extensive bruising that was some time in healing.
The bike did not fare so well: its frame was bent 7” out of line and the rear engine mount snapped off. This major damage was accompanied by all the dings and scrapes you would expect from being batted down the road by white van man.
Battered but undaunted, our hero bought the wreck from the insurers for £100 and set about mending it. At this point, a combination of Lady Luck and the Panther Owners’ Club came to the fore. A fellow member had a model 35 frame that he planned to use for a trials special. His plans did not include keeping the rear section of the frame and he offered his good frame for the bent one as a straight swap, at no cost. A very fine fellow indeed.
The engine was largely unscathed apart from a hole abraded in the left casing, but the fractured cast-in rear mounting made it unusable. That is to say, unusable to we ordinary mortals but not to a determined man with a TIG welder. There was enough of the original mount left for a 5/8” mandrel to rest in the shallow channel that remained of the bore that originally carried the rubber sleeve and mounting bolt. This ensured the new mount was correctly aligned. That done, the rear of the crankcase was preheated ‘as much as I dared’ and the new mount built up with layers of alloy around the mandrel with the TIG welder.
Once this was done, the new weld was insulated for slow, even cooling and prevent warping and cracking. It took some force with a hydraulic press to remove the mandrel, but this gave some assurance that the new mount was strong enough. All that remained was some serious fettling and machining to clean and size it, but the result was a serviceable and durable
engine mount.
By way of an encore, our patient and creative owner made and fitted a slipper type tensioner for the otherwise non-adjustable primary chain. This was over and above all the work needed to repair the rest of the accident damage.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the more difficult jobs was to register the new frame with the DVLA, but this challenge too was overcome. The Little Red Racer was issued with a new number to go with the 1966 frame and put back on the road in 2015, and it is still going strong. What’s it like to ride mister? Other than the lack of a kickstart, cold starting is along familiar lines. Fuel on, tickle the carb – but do not flood it – set ¾ choke, crack the throttle open and turn the key. Just two or three crank rotations and the engine burbles happily into life.
Let it warm up for a minute or two and you are ready to go. There’s a blue haze for a while, but that soon clears thanks to a low ratio mix of modern, synthetic two-stroke oil. Settling over the ace bars, I blipped the throttle, squeezed the clutch lever and selected first gear. This was ‘down’ due to the reversed lever. A useful feature for a Triumph rider.
Easing the clutch out and adding revs soon had us on our way. First gear is low, very low, so it’s quickly up into second, third gear at 15-20mph and fourth from about 25mph on. There is quite a lot of pedal travel and the odd false neutral, so feeling it into gear was more rewarding than a quick prod. With my ears long accustomed to big four-stroke singles and twins I was unused to the wail of a two stroke twin. This meant I was changing up sooner rather than later and progress was steady rather than rapid, or even brisk. Once past that feeling of over-revving it I found the little bike happy to buzz along at around 50mph with more in hand if needed.
So, enough performance for bimbling around the lanes if not blasting around the bypass. When it comes to stopping, this machine is in a different league. That 2LS brake is smooth, progressive and highly effective. The little Panther just stops, no drama, just the rapid shedding of inertia. I found myself using the back brake for no other reason than to show the brake light.
A generous and trusting owner let me have the bike for a few days so I could get to know it. He was absolutely right, first impressions are one thing, but some good runs around the Lincolnshire fens and uplands bordering Rutland gave the bike a chance to show its stuff.
The little Panther’s suspension, frame and forks are well up to the engine’s performance. It steers and handles very well and makes no demands on the rider beyond picking the line and setting up for the next bend. In fact, given the riding position, it is hard to resist hanging
a knee out and grinning like an idiot despite having tongue firmly in cheek.
Time for a breather and pictures. That’s easy, pick the spot, pull over, turn off and flick the sidestand down. There is no main stand and no need n for one. We stood for a while enjoying the quiet q of the English countryside, its autumnal colours c blazing in the afternoon sunshine.
Climbing back on board, I briefly wondered about a a warm start, often the bane of two-strokes. s It was running well when I stopped so I j ust opened the throttle a little and turned the key. k Just a suggestion of crank rotation had it burbling b away and ready to go. Easy peasy.
I managed enough miles to need a couple of fuel stops. The marked 2T oil bottle was a godsend. Just match one or more measures marked on the bottle to the number of litres added to the tank. Very well thought out.
All too soon it was time to take it back. Buzzing along at 40-45mph along a straight stretch of fen road, I came up on a large grain lorry, pulled out and wound back the throttle. The little bike was still accelerating north of 55mph before clearing the front of the lorry and easing off a little. True, this was less than breathtaking but this bike is most rewarding when ridden within its limits. It will get you to where you need to go – and back – in a most enjoyable fashion, but a wise rider will chose his route carefully. Never mind keeping up with modern traffic, enjoy the pace of quieter times and be prepared for a small gathering wherever you stop.