TT Titans: The Twenty-Five Greatest Isle of Man Racing Machines

Introduction

It was while idling away a few spare hours in my garden that this book began to take shape. I began to imagine what the line-up in a fantasy TT museum would look like. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Isle of Man TT is the most challenging motorcycle race on earth. Its 37¾-mile track twists through villages and between stone walls and telegraph poles, before climbing over 1,000 feet above sea level to reach the highest point on the course. It tests rider and machine to the limit. There is little margin for error, and for this reason the event has sometimes caused controversy. It is, however, arguably the most historic motorsport event in the world, with the TT Mountain Course being the oldest motorcycle racing circuit on the planet still in use. Only the two world wars, and the threat of foot and mouth disease in 2001, have interrupted the annual event.

The TT is unique: in order to succeed, a rider must display an extraordinary combination of skill and raw courage, coupled with engineering and technical excellence. In this book I examine twenty-five of the most significant machines in the history of the event, combined with profiles of the men who built and rode them. I freely acknowledge that other similar compilations have appeared in the past, but in most cases authors have chosen to focus on significant types of machine. What I believe makes this book slightly different, is that I have tried to identify the twenty-five individual machines which I believe have made the strongest contribution to TT history. Choosing which to include was a highly subjective process. Perhaps none of the bikes featured in this book would have been successful, had they not been in the hands of the person who took them across the start line that day (it is, after all, a racing truism that the most important component of a motorcycle is the nut holding the handlebars). I admit that another author might well choose a different twenty-five, which would still be equally valid. One of the great things about the TT is that almost every year history is made in some way, so even if this list were definitive, it could not long remain so.

TT fans today might question the inclusion of so many early machines, when more recent lap times and speeds would seem to put them decisively in the shade. However, it is important to remember that pre-1945 riders had fewer races each year from which to build an impressive tally of wins, and the standards of both machinery and road surfaces were much worse. Poor brakes and dusty unmade road surfaces contributed to many accidents in the early years of the event, and I would argue that these early pioneers with pudding basin helmets were no less skillful or brave than their later counterparts.

In selecting the machines, I have tried to weigh up the impact that each had at the time, and in particular I have taken account of achievements such as lap records broken or other significant milestones established. I’m privileged to have seen at least some of the motorbikes and sidecar outfits featured in this book at close hand; I’ve looked upon them with awe, and I’m gratified to think that at least some of them are preserved for ever as a testament to the skill and bravery of those who built and rode them. While some of the motorcycles I have described are preserved in private or public collections, others are believed to have been lost to history, though it is difficult to be absolutely definitive. Some machines I know still exist; others I know certainly do not. Some I’m still not sure about, so if you know anything about the fate of these machines, why not drop me a line? I can be contacted through the publishers, or I’m usually to be found at the Manx Museum in Douglas.

Matthew Richardson, Douglas, Isle of Man 2017

Chapter 1

432cc Matchless (rider Charlie Collier) 1907

It almost goes without saying that the motorbike that won the first ever Isle of Man TT race, which was held on the St John’s course in 1907, would have to be in anyone’s collection of the top twenty-five TT machines. But which bike did win that first event? There were two races run as one that year. In the twin-cylinder class, the Norton of Rem Fowler (from Birmingham, and a skilled toolmaker by trade) was the first machine home. In the single-cylinder class Charlie Collier, aboard a Matchless, took the honours. In essence, this chapter is the story of two rival machines and their riders. While Fowler’s moment of glory was brief, Collier, it might be argued, has a more lasting claim to fame, not just because he was riding a machine he had built himself, but also because he could justifiably state that he was one of the men who founded the TT itself. Thus it is the Matchless that takes the limelight as the first of the twenty-five greatest-ever Isle of Man racing machines.

Most general history books list Rem Fowler as the first winner of a TT, but it is hard to see why this should be so, because even allowing for the fact that the first-ever race comprised two classes, Collier both won his class and finished first overall. Comparison of the two winning machines makes for interesting reading. There was a slight difference in weight, with the twin at 182lb and the single at 171lb, but this was offset by the fact that the former was rated at 5 horsepower and the latter only 3.5 horsepower. Fowler was aboard a Peugeot-engined Norton, the Birmingham-based brand not yet having devised a motor of its own, while Collier was aboard a Matchless, the marque which he, his father Henry and his older brother Harry had developed themselves at their Plumstead works. Like Norton, they had yet to perfect their own powerplant. Along with many other motorcycle manufacturers of the time, they had initially started production as a bicycle-making factory, before deciding to add an engine to their standard frame. In 1905, they produced a JAP V-twin-powered bike, with one of the earliest swing-arm rear suspensions, coupled with leading-link front forks, and they would still be using a 432cc overhead valve JAP engine (along with a belt drive and bicycle-style stirrup brakes) in 1907. Founder John Alfred Prestwich started the JAP engine company in 1895 and, as well as constructing his own motorcycles, he supplied engines to many other manufacturers. They had a well-deserved reputation for strength and reliability.

Over the preceding few years, Harry and Charlie Collier had been racing motorcycles made in their south London factory at events up and down England. They also raced on the Continent, and it was on a train journey back from the 1906 International Cup Races in Austria that the Collier brothers, together with their travel companions, the Marquis de Mouzilly St Mars and Freddie Straight, chairman of the Auto Cycle Club (the motorcycle branch of the Automobile Club), came up with the idea of establishing a two-wheeled race on the Isle of Man. Even at this early point in motorcycle sport, international politics had an influence. By racing closer to home, the Colliers hoped to overcome what they saw as the unfair advantages that European manufacturers enjoyed on the Continent. Collier remembered later:

Due to the glaring breaches of the rules on the part of the Austrian riders and officials alike, the results of the 1906 race were declared void. Although the continental riders were really splendid fellows it was perfectly obvious that their conception of playing the game was very different from the English version… It was during the long monotonous train journey that the question of organising an English race was discussed and that splendid sportsman, the Marquis de Mouzilly St Mars… generously offered to present a suitable trophy which he suggested should be named the Tourist Trophy.¹

The Collier family also wanted to see an end to the use of special machines constructed only for racing, and instead wanted to restrict the meeting purely to road-going motorcycles, as a means of testing both reliability and fuel consumption. The Isle of Man was the obvious place to consider holding such an event because, while the Westminster parliament had set its face against closing roads for racing, its smaller cousin on the Island had already established a precedent by closing roads for motorcar racing as early as 1904, and so the Manx authorities were approached. The result of these efforts was the first Tourist Trophy motorcycle race, held on 28 May 1907. Single-cylinder machines were required to achieve a fuel consumption figure of 90mpg; for twin-cylinder machines the target was set at 75mpg. Petrol tanks were specified to be 1.25 gallons in capacity, tyres were required to be of at least 2-inch section, and there was to be a compulsory ten-minute stop for rest and refuelling halfway through the race.

The day of that first race was cold and cloudy, and the twenty-five single and twin-cylinder competitors practised among the bustle of regular traffic, much of it horse-drawn, on the untarred roads of the fifteen-mile St John’s Course. Collier recalled:

Originally the race was intended for purely touring machines exactly as offered for sale to the public; although there was no cc limit a much more effective limit was imposed by a petrol consumption maximum of 90mpg.… I can still recall the worrying dread of using more than the meagre allowance of petrol that was measured out carefully to each competitor at the start and again at half distance when a stop for refuelling was compulsory.²

With engines spluttering, the riders made their way to Tynwald Hill, where crowds had gathered to watch the start of the race. Fowler was suffering from the effects of an abscess on his neck, which was still heavily bandaged. He recalled in his record of the event fifty years afterwards that he was far from at his physical peak; indeed on reflection he felt that he was in no fit state to ride that day, for he was in a rather run down and nervous condition. However, just before the start a friend of his fetched him a glassful of neat brandy tempered with a little milk. This pepped him up, and he set off full of hope and Dutch courage.

Fellow competitors had warned him that his 700cc Norton bike was dangerously incompatible with the course. Its spring forks and the sheer length of the bike’s wheel base, his rivals believed, would make it almost impossible for Rem to negotiate corners. His response was bullish, and he later stated that he answered his detractors in emphatic fashion by coming home in first place. His arch rival Billy Wells entered the race on a Vindec, but Rem was ready for his challenge; aside from his nerve tonic he set off on the 158-mile journey with just a spanner and four spare spark plugs – all of which would be needed – stuffed inside his coat.

Part of today’s TT circuit, between Ballacraine and Kirk Michael, covers the same course as that race in 1907. Starting at St John’s, the riders turned hard left at Ballacraine, before turning sharp left again back to Peel once they reached Kirk Michael, at the bend known as the Devil’s Elbow. In Peel they turned left once more back to St John’s. The biggest challenge on the course was undoubtedly Creg Willey’s Hill, where in those days the road was narrow and winding. Most of the machines, apart from the two Triumphs, were also equipped with pedals, and the usual approach to this apparently unassuming gradient (which nevertheless represented a disproportionate challenge) was to open the throttle wide at Glen Helen and build up as much speed as possible, then pedal the last few yards. The Devil’s Elbow was also a treacherous part of the course if approached too fast, and many a rider came unstuck there. The race was run over ten laps of the 15-mile 1,439-yard course, totalling some 158 miles. However, more than a century of infrastructure investment means that the quality of the road surface is now markedly different. The highway in 1907 was not metalled, and the surface was loose and gritty. In dry weather, passing traffic was apt to stir up clouds of dust, so the TT organisers decided that the best course of action was to spray this stretch of road with an acid solution from a water cart. This had unexpected effects. Not only did the acid fail to settle the swirling clouds of dust, but it also burned holes in the riders’ clothing. Triumph competitor Jack Marshall (who, incidentally, also claimed to have won if stoppages were taken into account) remembered that the fine powdery surface presented another hazard:

Overtaking was extremely difficult, not to say dangerous. One charged blindly into a cloud of dust and hoped that there would be a clear road ahead on the other side of it, and that the cause of the dust would not wobble or swerve as one went past.³

Corrosion, however, was probably the least of Rem Fowler’s problems during the race. He encountered so many issues changing tyres, plugs and belts that at one stage he decided enough was enough and called it a day. It was not until a spectator informed him that not only that he was leading his class, but that he was also a massive half an hour ahead of Billy Wells, that he gleefully set off again with his initial gusto restored. Rem almost stopped again when faced with what he described as his most exciting moment. He recalled:

About halfway through the race, as I approached the Devil’s Elbow… I saw clouds of black smoke on the hill ahead of me. As I rounded the bend, there in the middle of the road was a machine, well alight, with flaming oil and petrol all over the road. I had to make up my mind instantly whether to obey the the violent flag-wagging of the Boy Scout on duty and stop, or to take a chance and dash through it. Realising that I had a good chance of winning, I decided to make a dash for it. The Boy Scout and others standing by were naturally taken by surprise, and only just got out of the way in time as I vanished into the flames. The chief risk actually was of hitting the burning machine, which was hidden in flames and smoke. However, I managed to dodge it, and got through OK – all I felt was the hot blast. But I was very pleased to be on my way again, none the worse for what might have been a very nasty mess-up.⁴

Charlie Collier, meanwhile, was having difficulties of his own, and remembered:

My mount for this first TT was a single geared ohv single-cylinder two-port Matchless of 432cc, with all controls on the tank sides. Imagine having to remove one’s hand from the bars for every change of ignition, air or throttle, and even for operation of the hand oil pump!… Imagine also coasting down the steeper inclines with the throttle closed and valve raised in order to conserve petrol and using the smallest possible throttle opening throughout for the same reason – the speed of 38mph was not so bad. So far as I was concerned there were no incidents in the race worthy of recording. I started No.4 together with my brother No.3, starting then being in pairs, and apart from passing two riders, Nos 1 and 2, and a few stranded competitors, I did not meet anybody from start to finish.⁵

Collier wins the 1907 TT. Inset: Collier aboard a Matchless machine, built at the family’s Plumstead works. (Manx National Heritage)

The victory of the Matchless did not go uncontested by its competitors. Norton protested against Charlie Collier’s pedal assist and, in its post-TT advertising, made much of Rem Fowler’s bad luck, which they said had deprived the Birmingham rider of the overall win that his fastest lap suggested might have been his. Triumph, for whom Jack Marshall had traded the lead with Charlie Collier before finishing second in the single-cylinder race, claimed that it had made the fastest time when stops for repairs were deducted. Echoes of this early TT controversy can still be heard. Nevertheless, Collier and Fowler collected the £25 cheques awarded to the winners of each class. Collier had achieved 94.5mpg over the course of the race, and despite the Norton’s fast lap he had been steadily drawing out his lead and was nearly fourteen minutes ahead by the end.

So the first of the twenty-five greatest Isle of Man TT machines is Charlie Collier’s Matchless, but nothing is known for certain of the eventual fate of the machine, which appears to have been lost to history. One rumour has it that it ended its days in the foundations of a building. While the Collier brothers were always modest about their achievements, and Matchless as a firm never capitalised on the publicity that this first TT win might have brought them, Norton were less reticent. They never missed an opportunity for many years afterwards to trumpet the fact that one of their machines had won the first-ever TT race. Perhaps this is why, along with the fact that a machine claimed to be that ridden by Fowler in 1907 (though disputed by some) survives in the National Motorcycle Museum at Birmingham, it is Fowler’s name which is forever associated in the public consciousness with that first race, and not Charlie Collier.

Chapter 2

580cc Indian twin (rider Oliver Godfrey) 1911

The second machine in this virtual hall of fame comes from one of the most famous motorcycle manufacturers in the world, and one whose all-too-brief flirtation with the TT produced impressive results at the time. This firm, the American-based Indian brand, was among the earliest competitors when motorcycle racing began on the Isle of Man, but the interest of the company in the event sadly waned after the First World War. Nevertheless, their achievements in the 1911 TT remain at the forefront of motorcycle racing history, and indeed are part of TT legend. It is the machine ridden to success that year by British rider Oliver Godfrey that forms the subject of this next chapter.

The Indian Motorcycle Company was originally founded by George M. Hendee in 1897, as the Hendee Manufacturing Company, in order to manufacture bicycles. The brand name ‘American Indian’, quickly shortened to just ‘Indian’, was adopted by Hendee from 1898 onwards, because it gave better product recognition in export markets. Oscar Hedstrom joined the company in 1900 as chief engineer. Both Hendee and Hedstrom were former bicycle racers and manufacturers, and they teamed up to produce a motorcycle with a 1.75bhp, single-cylinder engine in Hendee’s home town of Springfield, Massachusetts. Four years after Hedstrom’s arrival, the company introduced the deep red colour that would become Indian’s distinctive trademark. In 1905, Indian built its first V-twin factory racer, and in following years made a strong showing in racing and record-breaking. Indeed, competition success played a big part in the company’s rapid growth and spurred on technical innovation. Indian were moderately successful manufacturers in the early TT races, scoring a second place in 1909 and top-ten finishes in most years up to 1914, but 1911 was undoubtedly the pinnacle of their achievement.

The 1911 TT was significant because it saw the first use of the Mountain Circuit. The St John’s course, which had been used since 1907, had fallen out of favour, as the residents of the western city of Peel objected to racers hurtling through their narrow streets. At the same time, the more innovative manufacturers (Indian in particular) had begun to use a chain rather than a leather belt drive between the engine and rear wheel. This gave them the capacity to tackle the steep gradient of Snaefell mountain and thus compete on what had previously been known as the ‘four-inch course’, because it had formerly been used by motorcars of four-inch cylinder capacity. As well as chain drives, there were various approaches among the different manufacturers to the thorny question of gearing, also essential for tackling gradients, with Indian again in the forefront. Overall, racing on the Mountain Circuit was as hazardous as on the St John’s course, partly because of the poor condition of many of the Island’s roads – many were little more than dusty dirt tracks, which turned into slippery mud slides when it rained – but also because of the added obstacles presented by sheep, and the gates across the road intended to keep them from straying.

For the first time the race was split into Junior and Senior events, with the 1911 Junior TT won by Percy Evans aboard a Humber machine. Three days later came the Senior, with no fewer than five riders supported by the Indian factory: flamboyant American racer