BEING TOLD TO CEASE AND DESIST BY A GIANT like BMW is a backhanded compliment, especially when to tell them to get stuffed…
That’s what self-confessed techno-freak Paul Taylor and his band of chums did in 1991. The Bavarians saw a photo of their latest Motodd Laverda Mk.5 streetbike in the press, and its radical front suspension contravened BMW’s patents. Only one thing, said Paul & Co – here’s one we did earlier, depicted in another bike magazine some years before your allegedly valid patents!
After that, the Motodd Laverda indeed blossomed in terms of public awareness, both in Japan and in Europe, thanks to the decisive 37-second victory registered by the ‘works’ Motodd Laverda Mk.5 in the 2V2+3 event for two-valve, twins and triples, run at the International four-stroke race meeting at Assen in 1992 by the Dutch Ducati Club. If this 2V2+3 race win sounds like a turkey shoot – well, frankly, it was, thanks to the combined excellence of the Motodddeveloped three-cylinder race motor and the surefooted handling of the Saxon-built chassis, which allowed a bike with a 20-year-old Italian engine to outperform more recent 900SS and 750 F1 Ducatis and BMW Boxers. Being the lucky bloke invited to sit on the bike while it asserted its dominance over the rest of the Italian mob let me in for a champagne shower at the end of the race, as well as completing what began as a 30-lap magazine test at Mallory Park, in storybook style. But it also proved beyond reasonable doubt the viability of designer Nigel Hill’s SaxTrak front end design: it works!
Among the spectators at Assen was Dutch chassis guru Nico Bakker, who made a century two-wheeled design. But it was smaller players like Motodd, Fior and Britten, and independent designers like Saxon’s Nigel Hill, who played the most crucial role in pushing back the frontiers of accepted motorcycle chassis design practice 30 years ago.
