Chivo’s Konig
An exciting addition to the Period 4 Sidecar ranks will debut at the Australian Historic Road Racing Championships at Symmons Plains, Tasmania, in the hands of veteran racer Doug Chivas. The new machine is owned by Warren Thomas, a familiar figure himself on his yellow TZ750 Yamaha-powered Windle, and is powered by a brand new flat-four Konig engine sourced from the Czech Republic. The frame, which is identical dimensionally to the Windle, has been built by Peter Selke, and the aim is to have the complete outfit, ready to race, weigh in under 190kg. “That’s 100kg lighter than my Windle,” says Warren, “and with 110 horsepower in 500cc form it should be very competitive. The beauty of the Konig engine is that the combustion chamber – in effect the individual cylinder heads, sit inside what looks like the head itself and can be removed easily, allowing the wet liners for each cylinder to slip out. Then it is a relatively simple process to change the sleeves and ‘heads’ over to convert it to a 700 – it uses the same pistons as the original TZ700 Yamaha.”