Necessity is the mother of invention, and that explains the plethora of frequently ingenious, sometimes crude but always unique road racing specials concocted in Britain in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
For despite the ensuing hardship and privation as bombed-out Britain struggled to recover from its crucial role in helping to defeat Hitler, the ceasefire in hostilities released a wave of pent-up energy in all walks of life. For some, this included an urge to go motorcycle road racing, which had been suppressed for six long years since September 1939. But the problem was, with what?
The postwar production of brand-new racers by firms like Norton, Velocette and AJS only catered for the 350/500cc categories, and anyway, these cost the earth and were carefully rationed out, with many sold abroad to earn precious export revenue, especially from the USA and Canada. Prewar bikes existed, but those which survived weren’t exactly plentiful, and few of them catered for the more affordable 125/250cc classes, which were becoming increasingly popular.
So 75 years ago, the scarce availability of customer race bikes meant that, in post Second World War Britain, route one into a road racing career entailed either modifying the motorcycle you used for riding to work or, better still, concocting your own, more focused, racing special by giving free rein to your own technical convictions and expertise, of whatever level. Hence the creation in Britain of so many such home-made one-off specials of varying sophistication and effectiveness in the period from 1945-65, before the arrival of the Japanese two-strokes brought affordable performance, coupled with gradually improving reliability, to all and sundry.
These ranged from the brilliant REG twin, concocted ground-up by Bob Geeson in his garden shed after a hard day at the office, with which John Surtees won 15 races out of 17 starts to become the 1954 British 250cc champion; through numerous Velocette and Rudge powered devices; to the short-stroke BSA-derived GMS 250 created by Geoff Monty in 1955, on which both he and
