PJ OAKLEY MK III SX200 1967 DEALER SPECIAL –TEST DAY WITH SCOOTER WORLD

PJ Oakley hired Silverstone race circuit to test his Oakley Mark III SX200 on August 3, 1967. PJ took with him, as well as an Oakley Mk III Lambretta, a plethora of different spares as well as a then expensive £100 worth of accurate timing equipment. Also accompanying Oakley to Silverstone was Paul Chambers, who worked at the Leicester outlet as chief mechanic. He was also both test rider and works rider, competing on his own Oakley Mark III at race circuits, sprint meetings and rallies.

At a number of scooter sport events the fastest times of the day in Standard class were set by Paul Chambers on his Oakley Mark III. Enhancing the reputation of the Oakley dealer special for power, performance and reliability. The latter was a big factor at the time as many competitors would ride to competition events, take part and then ride home again afterwards.

Scooter World’s journalist was surprised to find in attendance Walter Hartley Phillips, who 40 years previously was a top International speedway rider. Phillips was also an engineer, and the inventor of the Wal Phillips injector. Walter Phillips was not at Silverstone as a mere spectator; he actually took the Oakley Mark III for a few runs. Obviously with the scooter running one of his own one inch fuel injectors, fitted with a 0.43 jet. After his rides Phillips was impressed. He was quoted as saying: “Not bad, we made 70 with the wind, it seems clean all the way up, no hanging at all.”

Paul Chambers then took over the test riding, changing the injector for an inch and a quarter Amal concentric carburettor, which, give or take a fraction of a millimetre translates to 32mm. He ran the Oakley Mk III first without and then with side panels fitted. PJ Oakley himself commented: “We feel we have a winner in this machine. It looks well and handles well. It has powerful acceleration, enough to give a standing quarter mile in standard trim of 19.05 seconds, with additional equipment we’ve got that down to 18 seconds flat, and your terminal velocity will be of the order of 70mph. The machine in that condition will have an overall top speed of between 75 and 80mph.” Test rider Paul Chambers confirmed “we reached 75mph after Maggots corner” which was very impressive for a Lambretta in 1967. Testing came to an earlier than anticipated conclusion due to continual hard cornering wearing a hole in the silencer, causing it to blow. On the test day, the Oakley Mark III was run on a pet-oil mix of standard pump petrol and a 24:1 mix of Filtrate oil. Filtrate was the oil brand recommended by PJ Oakley. For everyday use a mix of 32:1 was the oil ratio mix recommended for the Oakley dealer special.

Scooter World were very positive about the Oakley Mark III saying “this indeed was a fabulously equipped scooter, it WAS different and it LOOKED different, including the colour scheme” and going on to say “a dealer who hires Silverstone circuit for a day, takes along a truck of equipment, a prepared machine and timing gear costing nearly £100 can fairly be said to be taking the job seriously.

“When the single scooter is run over distances of one tenth mile and one quarter mile, clocked time after time, meticulously checked against various equipment changes... and at the end of a hard day’s running the scooter is still in fine fettle, has not crashed, run a bearing or burst the engine... then you can say one scooter dealer is justified in talking about tuning scooters and preparing them for the sporting rider.” Quotes are taken from Scooter World September 1967 feature titled ‘The engine is painted black on this Mk III Lambretta SX200’. PJ Oakley cut and pasted a number of quotes from the Scooter World feature into a two pager for the 60s scooter press, advertising his Oakley Mark III SX200. Sarge