The Maori motorcycle mystery
An important piece of New Zealand motorcycling history is soon to come back to life thanks to a special project being undertaken by a Taranaki man. provides the background.
now lives in the tiny village of Urenui after a career that has taken him to numerous civil engineering projects in New Zealand and Australia, he has taken that single oblique-angled photograph and created accurate working drawings of the Maori.
Now, Dave is using those drawings to build a replica of the motorcycle created almost a century ago by the young Kiwis G Johns and A Bannister. So far he has obtained a set of wheels, front mudguards, an example of the Druid springs that would have comprised the front forks, and a 250cc JAP engine that would have powered the machine.
But he’s still got a long way to go – not the least because the Maori featured a belt-driven variable speed transmission that the young New Zealanders apparently patented back in 1913 or 1914, but which the documentation for has since been lost.
It’s quite complicated, says Dave. It appears to have been controlled by an adjustable pulley chain driven from the crankshaft, and it was mounted on a swinging arm that moved in a preset arc, and which was operated by the rider’s foot.
"So that’s going to be interesting," he says. "So will be recreating the flat petrol tank that, according to my drawings, should hold about one gallon of fuel. And the frame is going to have to be a special one-off Dave Ransom special.
"But hey – I’m on the way. I’ve got the drawings, the wheel hubs and other bits and pieces, so I’m very lucky. I’m the lucky one who is going to be able to produce an exact replica of the Maori."
Well, it’s not going to be that exact. Dave has made some minor changes to his design, primarily adding a set of pedals so he can start the old JAP engine that way instead of having to rely on others to push-start the motorcycle. And he’s modified the brakes so they can be more in keeping with modern-day standards.
Visit Dave Ransom at his home overlooking the famous mudflats at Urenui Domain, and you walk into a treasure-trove of motorcycling memorabilia. In a shed out the back there are at least 20 motorcycles of varying vintage and in various states of disassem- bly, and it’s quite obvious he loves every one of them.
"This is my little piece of paradise," says Dave. "I can come out here and lose myself for hours. Sometimes I come out here to do some work, sometimes I come out here to sit and think – and often I’ll come out here just to sit."
And it seems that every motorcycle has a story to tell. For example, a 1938 vintage 350cc single cylinder Triumph that’s sitting there in very much an unfinished state.
"It used to be used as a compressor for a panel-beating business in Stratford, and it didn’t have a cylinder head. So when I picked it up I couldn’t find one anywhere," he says.
"But then blow me down if a couple of years ago my wife and I weren’t in Italy looking at the Leaning Tower of Pisa, when a lit- tle old lady came up to me and asked if I was interested in vintage motorcycles. I think she had spotted a motorcycle key-ring I had purchased. Turned out she was the secretary of the national vintage motorcycle organisation in London, and her husband had plenty of the very cylinder head I was looking for.
‘‘Not only that, but they were soon to travel to Queensland to visit their daughter - and they took the cylinder head with them and couriered it to me from there."
Then he points to a 1928 Triumph 500cc, the very type that used to be capable of 160 kmh around Britain’s once-famous Brooklands TT circuit.
"I found this all in bits under and around an old house," Dave explains.
"The engine was under the house, the handlebars and tank were somewhere else, and the frame was sitting under the tree.
‘‘Unfortunately when I tried to pick up the frame it had corroded to the extent it was a bit like confetti – but I’ve since got another frame from somewhere else."
But they’re not all old motorbikes in Dave Ransom’s shed.
He points to a 1996 Royal Enfield sitting there in all its splendour.
"The bloke who owned this was an engineer, and he’d been sent to Iraq to replace pipelines across the Tigris River," he explains.
"He told me that it was a very dangerous place, and that if the worst happened and he didn’t come back, then he wanted the motorbike to be mine.
"And that’s where the bad news starts.
‘‘Unfortunately the bugger has come back!’’