NORTHAMPTON’S MOTORCYCLES
Richard Jones continues his tour of the motorcycling midlands, celebrating those British bikes built in Northamptonshire. There are rather more marques which fit this bill than you might initially imagine: this month a Scorpion scuttles onto the stage
Richard Jones continues his tour of the motorcycling midlands, celebrating those British bikes built in Northamptonshire. There are rather more marques which fit this bill than you might initially imagine: this month a Scorpion scuttles onto the stage
Although many of Northampton’s motorcycles came from the first half of the 20th century, there is one that first saw the light of day in the 1960s, although it started life further south in Hertfordshire. In May 1963
Motorcycle Sport magazine featured an article about a 26 year old man in Bishops Stortford who made the courageous decision to design and manufacture a trials bike. Paul Wright, for it was he, worked on chassis development with a ‘well-known firm of sports and racingcar manufacturers’ (Lotus perhaps?) but his focus appears to have been more attuned to two wheels.
In 1961 he won a competition to design a bike with a 300cc parallel twin two-stroke design. Based on his experience of riding a Francis Barnett trials bike, he was motivated to take his design flair several steps further. Wright’s main thrust was that trials machines Below: Lousy pics of the Scorpion in the hands of Motorcycle Sport – back when it was a newspaper!
needed to be lighter, so he opted for a beam frame fabricated from 18 gauge mild steel, with 16 gauge for the rear suspension outriggers, adding up to an overall weight of about 11lb. He utilised fibreglass for the mudguards and petrol tank, manufactured by Chris Butler of Butler Mouldings (better known for building trans-Atlantic racing yachts) to produce a very light but strong trials iron.
The bike’s engine was a Villiers 8E 197cc two-stroke, to which Wright proposed to fit a toroidal head that he was having produced. This revised top end was said to add 5mph, 15mpg and better acceleration at no cost to flexibility. Although the machine’s front suspension looked remarkably like a leading link Greeves unit, Wright had come to this design and layout independently, adopting a head angle of 62° which would be changed to 64° if and when he developed a scrambler machine. Hubs were alloy, other suspension elements came from Armstrong and the wheels were 21” at the front and 19” at the rear.
Starting to build bikes from scratch is far from straightforward and Wright did not have access to production facilities. Hence the bike was designed so that it could be made up from parts made from outside firms working under contract and readily available proprietary parts. Wright intended to sell it in kit form, which attracted none of the sales tax that was applicable at the time.
The first prototype survived its initial encounter with the press without attracting any adverse comment from the several journalists who rode it. Two weeks after completion it was ridden by Chris Cullen in the Traders Cup Trial, where the only problem was that the rear chain came adrift a couple of times. Motorcycle Sport reckoned that the Scorpion had a 50:50 chance of succeeding, noting that although Wright was enthusiastic and very knowledgeable from a technical viewpoint, he lacked ‘sufficient trade knowledge or competition experience’ to appreciate the manner in which Joe Public would use his machine compared to press or competition riders. The machine’s styling could also benefit from some further attention – the straight lines of the angular frame did not sit well with the curves of the petrol tank and mudguards. All that being said, it was felt that the Scorpion could potentially rival DOT or Greeves in a couple of years.
Just before Christmas 1963, The Motor
Cycle reported more about Scorpion, which had relocated near to Brackley in Northants. Now there were five 250cc models in the Scorpion range, which comprised two trials and three moto-cross machines. Prices started at £223.2.6 for the basic trials machine to £288.15 for the top-of-the-range motocrosser. All five could be bought in kit form and for these the prices ranged from £182.10 to £237.10.
Both trials machines used the Villiers 32A engine, the more expensive of the pair having its Villiers’ cylinder replaced with a Parkinson alloy conversion. Ron Parkinson produced alloy competition cylinders and head kits for Villiers engines, as well as running his own motorcycle business. Two of the motocross bikes used the Villiers 36A engine, the middle of the range having the Parkinson alloy barrel, while the most expensive machine featured the Villiers Starmaker unit. Extras were available for the non-Starmaker machines – Parkinson crankcase (£10/10s) and Alpha racing crankshaft (£19/4s) – while all the machines could have an alloy fuel tank to replace the fibreglass version for £13.4.6. The key difference between the trials and moto-cross machines was said to be the steering head angle, which resulted in a 52” wheelbase for the trials bikes and a half-inch more for the moto-crosser. Scorpion intended to introduce road-race and ISDT versions as time progressed.
Nick Holt from Rushden was part of the Scorpion works team at the Scottish Six Days Trial in May 1964, his fellow team members being Chris Cullen and Laurie Spackman. Then only 17, Nick had competed in the SSDT the previous year on a James but had retired during the first day with mechanical problems. This time he made it through the first day of what was one of the wettest SSDTs on record, but a tooth sheared off the gearbox layshaft on the last section of Grey Mare’s Ridge. Nick managed to finish the day and get to Fort William but the gearbox had virtually disintegrated by the time he arrived, which meant he had to run alongside the bike for the last mile. The gearbox problem put him out of action for the rest of the week.
Laurie Spackman had bad luck too – he sheared a flywheel crossing the Kincardine Bridge on the first morning – but Nick believes that Chris Cullen finished with a special first: quite something for a machine that had only been developed the previous year.
Chris and Nick rode modified works bikes – fitted with larger fuel tanks for the event – which featured white frames instead of the normal black. Scorpion were among the first manufacturers to use coloured frames, and the scrambler that Nick subsequently rode was Kingfisher Blue, the same colour as Laurie Spackman’s machine for the 1964 SSDT. Chris Cullen went on to compete in the 1965 SSDT on a Scorpion.
By 1965 Scorpion had migrated to Northampton itself, near the county cricket ground. The manufacturer was confident enough to produce a brochure which proudly announced the advent of its ‘Racer 250 GP5’ model featuring a 246cc Scorpiondesigned engine with a high gas flow porting system, Albion five-speed gearbox, Amal carburettor and an exhaust with a resonant pulse chamber. Scorpion were still using a frame with a large backbone which avoided the use of a front downtube, said to improve engine cooling, while a rear subframe held the engine oil.
Forks were of a ‘Scorpion-Ceriani’ design while the rear suspension was a pivoted fork employing bronze bushes. The 18” front and rear wheels featured Oldani hubs with a 200mm 2ls brake at the front and an sls drum at the rear. Fibreglass was still a feature on the new Scorpion – the petrol tank was manufactured from the material, as may have been the front mudguard.
The illustration certainly looks purposeful, but the GP project was rumoured to have stalled at the mock-up stage. The example which appeared at a London show was believed to lack engine internals. However Nick Holt has confirmed that the road racer actually went, and he recalls going to Silverstone to watch it being tested. He did admit a certain lack of interest; ‘ The tarmac sport has never really excited me!’
The 1965 brochure also detailed the Scrambler Special, with its Scorpiondesign stressed beam frame and leading link suspension wrapped around a Villiers Starmaker engine. Finally ‘and coming soon’ was the Avenger 250 MX4: ’this machine is intended for use in national and international classes of moto-cross events and is not recommended for sale to any riders not of expert status’. There is no illustration accompanying the specification so, again, it may never have seen the light of day outside of Ashburnham Road. Nevertheless each model had a price – the Scrambler was £247.15, the putative Avenger £320.6.11 and the Racer 250 £414.18. That final price is equivalent to around £14,000 in today’s terms: not cheap for a 250.
Nick Holt recalls his last visit to the Northampton factory to sort out the machine for the Welsh three day trial – only to find that Scorpion were also manufacturing the Daleks appearing in the Dr Who television series. ‘I remember my surprise at seeing them in the factory – you definitely needed to be a small person to operate them!’
They may have only been built for two or three years, but Scorpions proved to be longlived and still come up for sale occasionally. Bonhams sold a Type 4 moto-crosser in 2009 for £632, so keep your eyes open if you want a piece of Northampton heritage. Moreover Scorpions are still ridden competitively today and one owner / rider is Ben Falconer of the West Gloucestershire and Dean Forest MCC. His Scorpion was acquired in 2010 from Dave Lomas, who campaigned them in the 1960s and is cousin to Bill Lomas. Dave had bought the bike in bits in 1967 and built the machine Ben rides today. It may have been assembled from its component parts but, as Ben says, ‘It is a genuine pre-65 with all major components dating from 1963’, which was important as Ben acquired it to ride in the pre-65 Scottish two-day trial.
Ben’s chance to test the Scorpion finally came in 2012; his first pre-65 trial and only the second time he had ridden the Scorpion – so he did magnificently well to finish although a broken kickstart and two broken shocks led to quite a high score. Of the machine itself Ben says ‘ The REH barrel and head are huge and it looks like a 360cc but it is a 250cc – plenty of power and far too sharp. Villiers expert Paul Powell has cast a new head, which has a bigger combustion chamber and this has softened the power significantly. Petrol is in the frame – this was something Dave Lomas did himself.’
When you see photos of later machines, the latter point becomes clear and it nicely addressed that point about angular lines and curves being uneasy bedfellows.
The final story of what happened to Scorpion in 1965 has disappeared down the back of the settee of history, although Nick Holt recalls that there was a fire at the premises. Scorpion disappeared that year and an innovative design sadly left the stage far too early. Who knows – if it had stayed the course Northampton may have been the home of Scorpion today and the town might still have a motorcycle manufacturer.