Mystery machine

For years, the ‘Klamfoth swing-arm mystery’ has occupied one man’s thought… Here’s the tale of a BSA that never was, but clearly was…

This is a kind of motorcycle ‘Who-done-it?’ tale, where readers will be invited to consider historical facts, American motorcycle racing regulations, photographic evidence and witness testimony and speculate along with the writer how it came to be that a motorcycle BSA shipped to a race in the USA in 1954, had changed into a different kind of motorcycle by the time it started the race.

Intrigued? Then read on. But first, some BSA history – since the story actually starts in 1921. For the 1921 TT BSA prepared a no expense spared, full works effort of six machines. Not only did none of the machines finish the race, but all had retired by lap two. For a manufacturer whose image was built on solid, reliable motorcycles, this was an expensive humiliation that poisoned BSA’s attitude to racing forever – never again would BSA risk its reputation gambling on racing success.

At least, not in Britain – but in America, things were different.

In contrast with Britain, the US economy had not been ravaged by the Second World War and recovered more quickly – many Americans owned cars and could also afford to buy a motorcycle for fun. Motorcycle racing in the US was very different from that in Britain. Controlled by the American Motorcycling Association (AMA) since formation in 1924, by the early 1930s the depression had caused factories to stop fielding expensive factory teams. In response, the AMA Competition Committee created Class C, which stipulated 750cc side-valve or 500cc overhead-valve machines, based on stock production bikes and parts, with only minor modifications deemed to be within the capability of an amateur. Done in the 1930s’ to protect the industry, by the 1950s, it was a sales tool and US racing success had a much more direct impact on sales (“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday…” ) than did a Manx Norton winning the Senior TT in Britain.

This fact was not lost on BSA. As part of Britain’s post Second World War recovery, the Government had told British industry to ‘export or die’ and BSA’s response to this was to create two distributorships in the US – Rich Child on the East coast in 1945 and Hap Alzina on the West in 1949. The result was that by the mid-1950s, the US was BSA’s single biggest sales market. And, if winning on Sunday meant sales on Monday, then winning the biggest event in the US motorcycling race calendar – the Daytona 200 mile expert race – was a prospect attractive enough to persuade BSA to lose its inhibitions about racing.

Given the green-light to proceed by Bert Hopwood in the Summer of 1953, a full works entry of BB Gold Stars and Shooting Stars was prepared for Daytona in March 1954. Although BSA had prepared bikes for Daytona previously without success, this time considerable time and money was spent, with separate teams working in the experimental and competition departments, and apprentice fitters employed specifically for the project. Under the direction of Roland Pike (who’d enjoyed much success with his own-built Rudges) a more rigorous and systematic approach was used in the conception and development of the bikes.

In 1954 the Daytona 200 was run on the old beach course. This was basically two long drag races – one on sand, the other on tarmac – connected by two tight