The Potts McIntyre story

As detailed in many sources elsewhere, Bob McIntyre, from Glasgow, started a very successful racing career in 1951 on a friend’s 350cc BSA road bike. After riding it to his first meeting, he went on to win three races and crashed out in the fourth. Bob’s natural talent was easily apparent and therefore it was no surprise that he soon found himself sponsored by Cooper Brothers, of Troon. Success with the Cooper Brothers’ bikes followed, the highlights probably being Bob’s victory in the Junior and second place in the Senior Manx Grand Prix on the same AJS 7R.

Joe Potts, fromBellshill, Glasgow, had a reputation as a successful racer and engineer. In the early 1930s he won many sand and grasstrack races on Sunbeam motorcycles. By 1934 his family encouraged him to stop racing and concentrate on his business commitments, which included car and motorcycle sales, a 24-hour garage, engineering work and even funeral directing! However, in 1949 Joe took up car racing in a F3 Cooper, which resulted in further victories and course records at the likes of Bo’ness and the Rest and BeThankful. Joe’s car dealership, engineering business and personal interest in racing cars, led him to build numerous racing cars, including his own JPs and the highly successful H3 Hopper Special. Through this specialised engineering work Joe acquired the reputation of being Scotland’s ‘high priest of tune’.

He was, however, a shy and slightly nervous person who avoided the limelight at every opportunity and it is due to this trait that he never received the recognition he deserved. Joe worked on the cylinder heads and porting for both the Ecurie Ecosse and LeMans winning Aston Martins, but was never happier than when in the workshop with his sleeves rolled up and wearing a brown smock. Always a motorcyclist at heart, in the early 1950s Joe developed a 500cc long-stroke Manx Norton on which he would enter numerous riders. Joe made his own crankshaft assembly for the machine at Bellshill. The crank