Imposter syndrome

Speeding along the wide, empty roads of West Wiltshire, with my head tucked down over the Velocette’s silver/grey petrol tank, it needed little imagination to transport my mind back to 1967 and picture myself on the Isle of Man heading for the flag in that year’s, newly-introduced 500cc Production TT.

Prior to 1967, the famous races had been largely the domain of pukka race bikes (for over 10 years anyway, since the cessation of the Clubman’s TT) but for the Diamond Jubilee event, the ACU had decided that something of the original intent of the Tourist Trophy should be resurrected and introduced a class for standard production motorcycles. In three capacity classes of 250, 500 and 750cc, the stipulation was that they should be machines that ‘Joe Public’ could buy in their local showroom and have no factory special tuning parts.

This idea was met with wholesale approval by most of the British manufacturers who still dominated the ‘big road bike’ class and on June 10, 1967, nearly 50 riders and their machines came to the start line. Unlike the other classes, the production race featured a ‘Le Mans’ type start and were flagged off all together,