Leather for British weather
Rukka Coriace R Usedfor: one month Price: £1869.99 Info: tranam.co.uk
‘Mr Spencer, proving why he was Fast Freddie’
º Crash protection of leather, weather protection of textile. There’s a Corium+ laminate glued directly to the leather, just like swish textiles, to keep out water and wind. Like textiles a coating stops the material soaking up water, and perforation means anything absorbed dries quickly. The suit’s a tad weightier than regular leathers but you soon get used to it, and it’s as good as any textiles – waterproof, snug in the cold, comfy in the sun. Ace. Unfortunately the jacket is £1000, the trousers are £870. That’s no pricier than leathers for summer and textiles for winter, and the top-quality Rukkas have a six-year warranty. But as a tight-arse I’d probably buy normal leathers and a flappy oversuit.
verything about the Münch Mammoth is over the top. When these German built behemoths first appeared in 1966 they were the fastest, heaviest, most expensive and most outrageous bikes you could buy. They were constructed by bolting the four-cylinder 1172cc engine from an NSU Prinz car into a specially made, Norton Featherbed inspired, tubular frame. If this makes it sound like the Münch was some kind of backyard lash up, then think again. Friedl Münch was an experienced and fastidious engineer with Luftwaffe and motorcycle race shop pedigree. The Mammoth featured lots of specially made, high-quality cast aluminium components; the huge front drum brake, the rear wheel, the primary drive and gearbox casing and the integrated rear-mudguard/seat unit/subframe. Some bikes also had a fantastic cast alloy twin headlamp binnacle too. Using a car engine might sound daft, but the NSU Prinz engine was compact and lightweight (for a car). The four-cylinder, air-cooled, ohc unit was asking to be put into a bike. Though only into a big bike mind.
EEven with all that aluminium a Mammoth still weighed in at 280kg. Still, 88bhp was twice the power output of a typical British 650 twin, and a reputed 125mph top speed would leave anything this side of an E-type Jag as a dot in the mirrors for as long as the rider could hang on. The handling isn’t the kind of jelly wobble that you might expect of such a hefty item. Meaty Rickman forks keep the front end in order, the chassis is stiff, the steering is neutral. You’d never call it nimble, but it’s certainly stable.
The Mammoth was effectively made obsolete by the arrival of the Honda CB750 for 1969. The Honda made four-cylinder biking accessible and showed up the sheer bulk of the German device. Limited production of Friedl’s creation continued in fits and starts, and under a few different badges, for much longer than it should have, but they were always rare and were never cheap. I’d still like one in my garage though, but with them now changing hands for Vincent money that’s not going to happen.