Velo-ciraptor!
With its massively finned overhead-cam engine, and the rakish appearance lent by its spindly-looking yet purposeful girder fork, the 350cc Velocette KTT Mk.VIII is unquestionably one of the most beautiful racing motorcycles ever built.
Racers are supposed to be functional pieces of machinery, built for a purpose, but the KTT Mk.VIII combines form and function in a way that, on a purely subjective basis, I don't think any other single-cylinder motorcycle ever quite matched.
There’s something indefinably attractive about the square finning of its single-OHC engine with just enough rounding-off of the edges, its ‘dog kennel’ rocker covers, the graceful sweep of the open-megaphone exhaust, and of course that handsome gold-lined black petrol tank with the discreet but classy Velocette logo that was ‘Always in the Picture’, according to the company slogan. Velocette’s failure to make a road bike with this last-of-the-line KTT’s looks but with a push-rod OHV motor, is one of the great lost opportunities of Vintage era marketing.
But as I’m fortunate to have discovered on a handful of occasions, the KTT Mk.VIII goes as well as it looks, and my most recent turn in the hot seat of Velocette’s finest customer creation in 66 years of building bikes came on a sunny afternoon at Mallory Park, thanks to ex-pat American Robert Lusk, a former rostrum finisher in world championship 125GP racing, who at the age of 80 was still battling for victory in top level Classic racing in the UK, where he’s been domiciled since the early 1970s.
Owner of a large but eclectic motorcycle collection, Robert acquired a very historic 1948 version of the 238 examples of the KTT Mk.VIII which Velocette built at a Bonhams sale back in 2005 – but having been exhumed from a collection whose late proprietor had never run it in public during his two decades of ownership, Lusk immediately took it to Velocette guru Ivan Rhodes to be recommissioned to race-worthy condition, for active service in his, and his friend Peter Crew’s, hands.
Rhodes did his usual painstakingly excellent job, and Crew twice rode the highly original 350 Velo to honourable finishes against all the 500cc Classic hardware in the 2006/7 Goodwood Revivals. But it was third time unlucky in 2008 when Robert Lusk and son Chester – himself also a former 125GP racer – suffered gearbox problems in that year’s Revival, the first involving two riders per bike. But Peter Crew managed to track down a replacement ‘box, and rebuilt it just in time for the late Colin Seeley to demo the Velo at the 2010 Festival of 1000 Bikes at Mallory Park.
After occasional CRMC club races during the next decade in Robert Lusk’s hands, he decided to retire it from racing while still in good nick – machine, as well as man – but as a fond farewell to the track invited yours truly to sample it at Mallory Park.Thanks, Robert!
Built in 1948 at Velocette’s Hall Green factory in Birmingham and bearing engine no. 973 fitted in frame no. SF121, this KTT was ridden to victory in the 1951 Swiss GP – then a world championship event
