The Towners

I would like to add my experiences with the Towner 500cc Royal Enfield (Cob’s Column OBA 98). In the late ‘50s and early ‘60s I rode that bike for John Towner on short circuits at Heddon Greta, Taree and Muswellbrook, and can verify that it went very well and had as good a megaphone sound as one could wish for. At John’s prompting, I took it to

Phillip Island for the 1960 January meeting. Paul McGovern accompanied me with the ex-Jack Sullings B33 BSA on which I had won the Clubmans B at the previous Bathurst races. John had changed the cams for road racing and I gave it a try after business hours behind Taylors (Newcastle) in the council car park and it sounded glorious. However I did only two practice laps before a valve kissed the pistons and bent. We pulled it down but the valve was special and there was no available replacement. John admitted that he had another piston to suit those cams, but chose not to fit it. I don’t know why. Regarding con rods, a standard RE rod was not up to the job, several broke, so they got Art Senior to manufacture one, fabricated and welded to an Hsection and heat treated by De Havilland in Sydney. Later during maintenance, when Wal Martin was workshop supervisor, the rod was found to be slightly bent and was put in a press with no immediate response so it was left in overnight for nil result. I can’t recall what the solution was, but during my time with it, it gave no further trouble. I spoke with Jack Sullings who later owned the bike, a few weeks prior to his death, and he said he had fitted a Jawa or ESO con rod to it and had sold it to a New Zealander living in Australia.

John also told me about a year before he passed on that he had won the NSW and Australian titles on the 350 RE. I asked what happened to the bike and he said that the 500cc RE was built mainly from the 350. John had been a very good rider but after a serious injury at Mt Druitt, to my knowledge he did not race again. The 500 had a full bin fairing fitted for one of the Bathurst meetings, and in practice John told me he had passed Doug Fugger’s Rennsport BMW down Con Rod, doing over 144mph. However it was very scary and the bin fairing was not used again.

The late Eric Hoskins told me a story on a visit here about 10 years ago that he went to Art Senior’s to pick up a job and Art asked if he would take an RE motor back for the Towners. On arrival at Taylor Cycles Jack Towner was very annoyed and Eric got the impression people were not supposed to know about the Art Senior input. This was a bike well worth writing about. Ivan Turnbull New Zealand ►