Jps Norton Monocoque

JPS Norton Monocoque

Doing more with less, through innovative design

PIERRE TERBLANCHE

THE PETER WILLIAMS-DESIGNED Norton Monocoque 750 racer is really special, a project that I can only now truly appreciate after trying to design motorcycles for so long. Here we are not talking about styling but about brilliant engineering/product design, an essentially underpowered bike that could win races against bikes with up to 40 hp more because of its advanced conceptual engineering design. The fact that in 1973, Peter Williams managed to create such a competitive bike as rider/tuner/development engineer is unbelievable. The only other such feat I know of was by Helmut Fath and his wonderful URS world-beating sidecar from 1968.

Williams’ Norton, top scorer at the TransAtlantic Match Race series and Formula 750 winner at the Isle of Man TT, incorporated a huge number of very innovative ideas. The slippery, low-frontalarea bodywork with a Cx of 0.39 was a result of many hours spent in England’s Motor Industry Research Association wind tunnel. Claim to fame was the bike’s stainless-steel monocoque/beam chassis that also held fuel, and to which disc brakes and cast magnesium-alloy wheels were mounted.

Flow to the airbox was separated from cooling air for the motor to improve the Twin’s rather limited power output. Ram air, anyone...?!

It had a two-stage iuel tank; the top section, in fact, a tank within a tank. Gas was pumped into this and then flowed to the motor via gravity feed.

On top of all this, it also happened to be the first racebike ever sponsored by an outside company, John Player & Sons cigarettes.

The JPS Norton was the culmination of years of work on the concept. To me, it is one of the most intelligent bikes ever built and an example of a very good design engineer coming up with clever ideas to offset the fundamental shortcomings of the mechanical package with which he had to work. □