Sketchbook specials

In the beginning

My investigation into the story of one of .TAP's last racing engines and an engineer's efforts to build and race competitive British motorc ycles started when I saw Ewan Cameron 's 5oocc Phoenix. TAP. After asking Ewan for more information , he sem through a scan of a Vic Willoughby article published in The Motor Cycle, April 2, 1952.From here thcsror y unravelled and with further research, this is what I have so far..

Precision engineer and keen weightlifter Ernie A BaiTctt, from I !arrow , Middlesex , started grass track racing in 1946, attending meetings at Folkstone , Lyddcn Hill and Favcrsharn among others. Ernie ended his first season by winning the Novice Cup at the final meeting of the season , at Brands I latch.

The following year, Barrett started road racing. As Britain recovered from the war , venues for racing were in constam flux, with airfields co111111yonpllaying host to road racingevems due to the lack of dedicated circuits. Barrett would attend meetings on the airfields of Ansry, Dunholrne and his more local venue of Abridge. As many an ambitious road racer made their annual pilgrimage to compete on the most demanding road circuit, the Isle of Man , so coo did Ban-err. His firstemrics were on Norrons in both the Junior and Senior Manx Grand Prix of 1947 - disappointingly , he retired from both races.

In 1948 his luck changed in the Lightweight Mam GP , finishing an impressive second on a Moro Guzzi , at a speed of 69.77111ph;this was to be his best ever IoM result. In subsequem years, he suffered multiple retirernems on both Norton and A.IS machines.

By 1950, Barrett had moved to Tottenham, North London - this is an irnportam poim which we will come back to. Du1ing this time, Barrett 's racing achievernems were a mixed bag ; 10th place in the Ulster GP showed that he could definitely compete , while his Mam attempts were ovenvhelrningly non-finishes. There was a change of forrnnc in 1952, when he cmered the Lightweight TT again on a Moro Guzzi and came in 11thplace. I-I is Senior enny of the same year, on a Norton , resulted in a finishing position of34th.

Continued over..

Anew start

On seeing this sning of results - with consistent retirements on B1itish machines and his best achievements on Italian motorcycles - I have formed the impression that Barrett thought he could do better with a machine developed by himself Surely, with all his experience in road racing notonl y on the Isle of Man bm in the Ulster

GP and various other meetings, along with his skills as a precision engineer , Barrett could build a motorcvclc that would produce results?

The main clement to decide on was the engine. For this, he turned to his now-local Tottenham firm .I A Prestwich (.IAP). At the time, the company was in decline but was still producing behind this is unknown. Further to this, according to .JeffClew , the .IAP works didn 't publicly release any official details of their new engines until November 1952, when they announced a new olw single cylinder engine , ·...a 250cc version of the experimental engine used by Ernie Barrett at the Oliver's Mount meeting ... [it] was designed primarily for sp1int use.'

In the somewhat promotional piece published in The Motor Cycle, April 2, 1953, entitled "New Racers On the Way," Vic Willoughby visits Barrett 's works in Tottenham, where he saw three prototype racers for the coming season. It isn't long before the 'Phoenix ' name is mentioned ; Barrett planned to sell production versions of these racers under the Phoenix moniker. All were being designed to use the new .IAP 250cc, 350cc and 500cc engines. Barrett himself had been involved with the development of the 500cc unit for ·...the last six months ' according to the article. Willoughby also points ollt that: "Racing men will need no reminding that there is at present no and developing engines for both stationary and transport pu rposcs.

In September 1952, a good three months after his mixed results in the -i~r, Barrett took a ' Fcathcrbcd ' Norton to the Oliver's Mount meeting , Scarborough , that had people talking ... The ohc Norton engine had been replaced by an interesting experimental motor made by . IAP. Seen in a clipping from Motor Cycling, dated September 25, with the fuel tank bearing the Norton name, this was a very early test for Barrett ofthc.lAP 5oocc unit.

The 500cc engine was one of a batch of six engines .IAP developed for Stirling 1Vloss to use in his Cooper racing car in the 1950 Monaco GP

British Racing 250 in production."

It is mentioned in the article thatthe 25occ,350cc and 5oocc engines weighed 67lb, 7olb and 82lb respectively. Willoughby described the engines as follows ... "The crankcase is cast in Elektron, the cylinder is a Wellworthy Al-Fin production and the cylinder head is an RR53B casting , with shrunk in, aluminium-bronze valve seats and a brass sparking plug boss. The cylinder-head joint is ground and no gasket is used."

.IAP engines are renowned for their low end torque , hence the engines were so popular in speedway. In testing at Brands I-latch, Barrett found that the 248cc.lAP engine ollt pe1formed his same size 1Vloto Guzzi , giving an ·...advantage of two or three seconds in favour of the .IAP.'

Willoughby was shown not only the new .IAP engines , he also saw the frames that Barrett was building. Notably inspired by the Norton Fcathcrbcd , the standard of the time, Barrett employed a duplex frame with double tubes used across the top and bottom , with the top tubes meeting. In order for Moss to run his Cooper in both F3 and F2 classes, .IAP made this special 5oocc engine which used a crankcase with the same mountings and engine plates as the 1100cc \I-twin , so the engines could be swapped between races. To save on a completely custom bottom end , .IAP kept the barrel angle the same as the \I-twin , with one barrel blanked off for the single cylinder F3 class.

By the time .IAP gave Barrett one of these engines they were two years old - whether they were sitting around the fact01y gathering dust , who knows' For some reason Barrett mounted his 5oocc Moss .IAP with the barrel in a vertical position , like a normal single cylinder, his reasoning coming ollt from behind the steering head around either side of the engine in a sn-aight line to the back. This provided rigidity for not only handling bm dispensed with the need for a rear subframe , as the suspension hung from these rear one piece mbes. The rear suspension was telescopic, bm Barrett personally would have preferred to have these with additional friction dampers , while the front forks were Earles-type, with hydraulically dampened spring units. The bottom tubes- similar to the Featherbed - ran down from the steering head and looped round the engine, with cross bracing all held together with bronze welding.

It was also recorded that the Phoenix machines would have Albion I-ITT gearboxes , 19inch alloy wheels with Wellworthy Al-Fin brake drums , and all light alloy tanks and mudguards. Barrett estimated that the machine would weigh in the region of 225lb to 25olb, depending on the engine size. The engines had been bench tested by .IAP and were producing anything from 18.6bhp at 72oorpm for the 250cc unit up to 46bhp at

6ooorpm for the 500cc unit.

At the time of Willoughb y's article , the Phoenix

machin es were not complete. The latter part of the article documents a test sess ion at the new Sncttcrton circuit , in which the Phoenix on test was using the new JAP engine in an older Barrett frame , built 'somc six years' before.

A week after the article was published , a programme for the Ctystal Palace meeting , on April 11, 1953, lists BatTctt on two Phocnix-JAPs. The diflc:rcncc in time between Willoughby 's visit

and this meeting is unknown , so I'm unsure as to whether the Phoenix machines entered included

Survivors

T he total number of Phoenix-JAPs built by Barrett is unknown. The Motor Cycle article indicates he was working on three frames at the time of Willoughb y's visit. There are possibly four Phoenix machines known - as with any small production racing machine , they rarely stay together in their original configuration for long. There are reports of Frank Heath racing a Barrett-framed machine with a Benelli engine in the 1960s . I've also seen a machine with Bcnclli on the tank with a JAP engine. Whether these arc the same machine at dit~ fcrcnt times , who knows , bm it goes to show how race machines inevitably dissipate and then come back together.

One of these existing Phocnix-JAPs was put together by Ewan Cameron circa 2004 , using a 500cc engine idcntical to the 5oocc engine that Barrett prcmicrcd at Oliver's Mount in 1952and used in the Isle of Man. The one notable diflc:rcncc between Barrett 's machine and Ewan's is the angle of the barrel. The Moss JAP engines were designed to

the older frame version as tested at Sncttc1to11, or

Barrett's newly developed duplex frames. The fact Barrett was using the Phocnix-JAP name shows he was actively promoting his endeavour , as well as

testing the new 250cc and 350cc JAP engines. One would assume Barrett was using various meetings to test , develop and prove his machines , before their big dcbm in the Isle of Man.

Barrett ran the Phocnix-JAPs machines for two years running on the Island and it was in the Lightweight TT that he and the 250cc Phoenix performed best , with 12th place in 1953and 17th in

1954. "J "he 350cc and 5oocc entries for 1953resulted be mounted with the engine in a sloped position due to the V-twin bottom end , as explained earlier , and this is how Ewan has mounted his. The frame is a Barrett frame , which was owned by Sid King. At the time , both Ewan and Sid decided that the frame and engine belonged together and so the 500cc Phoenix-JAP was reborn. The aluminium bodywork was made at Cameron Engineering and Motorsport Ltd. using the tc:w pctiod photos existing , including one of Barrett in the Isle of Man during 1953with a Phocnix in TT trim.

Another Phocnix-JAP , this a 250cc version, was sold ata Chcflins sale in 20 15, where the listing statin retirements.

By 1954, Barrett's Senior cntty was on a Norton instead of the 500cc JAP , though he did enter Phocnix-JAPs into both the Lightweight and

Junior entries , with the aforementioned 17th place in the Lightweight and a retirement yet again in the Junior. After this, Barrett wouldn 't return

"n-

to the until 1957 - the assumption would be that during this time he was concentrating on the launch of his next endeavour , the Phoenix Scooter ,

which was produced from 1956 until 1964; less exciting bm probably more profitable than highly specialised road racers. cd that it had becn pm back to its correct configuration with a dty sump , all aluminium JAP engine using a Triumph piston , increasing the bore by 211111I1t.had one outing to North Weald and local East Anglian shows. It's great to know that these machines are still around in configurations that honour Barrett's achievements and I look forward to possibly bumping into them in the future.