An important person in the design of the Hopper special

Ian Hopper’s dog was very important to him and he even ensured that his new racing car was designed around the dog. Behind the driver a removable section was incorporated which allowed Ian’s dog to sit by him.

Ian Hopper's dog.

Hopper Special returns from holiday

Following from my previous post, here is the photo of the Hopper special as it returns from a holiday in Strontian. Note the stag wrapped up on the luggage grid! I think it is fair to say not many other racing cars would have been used in the same manner as this.

The Hopper Special – making a stir on your debut

H3 was the third special made by Ian Hopper of Glasgow. The rolling chassis was made as a one-off by Joe Potts and featured a tubular chassis, suspension and wheels of a type used in his JP racing cars. The car used the very best component parts available at the time and was finished to an exacting standard throughout. The bodywork was designed by Ian Hopper as a true all-round sports car and incorporated a covered spare wheel and seating compartment for his German Shepherd dog. There is even a photograph of this remarkable all-rounder returning from a holiday at Strontian with a gralloched stag wrapped up on the luggage grid!

A Lea Francis 1496cc dirt track engine was fitted to the car. This was a competition engine designed by Ken Rose for dirt-track racing in the US and was a gear driven double hi-cam, cross-flow, dry sump unit producing 118bhp.The engine was slightly detuned and was fitted with twin SU’s as against the four Amal’s fitted as standard.   

The car was extremely successful and Ian joined forces with Jimmy Gibbon and Harry Slack to form the Ecurie Ossity team. They beat Ecurie Ecosse to win the inaugural 1952 Charterhall 3 Hour Team Relay Race.

The debut for Ian Hopper and his new special was on the 30^th of June 1951 (just nine days after it was road registered) at the Bo’ness International speed hill climb. It turned out to be a successful debut with Ian being victorious in the 1500cc un-supercharged sports car class and also setting a new class record.

Such was the stir that the Hopper special had caused it wasn’t long before the authorities starting questioning its legitimacy. As can be seen in the Autosport cutting below at the Winfield meeting the organisers impounded the Hopper special after its race to analyse the fuel. Sadly for the organisers they were to be very mistaken in what they suspected.

Making progress on Joe Potts’ Desmo

I thought I would share some pictures of the newly manufactured chassis for Joe Potts’ Desmo. The frame is a replica of the original 500cc Razorblade frame that Alec Crummie made prior to the start of the 1958 season. The frames are made to be ass authentically as possibly. The rotary tube swaging machine used to make the original tapering down tubes was even tracked down and used for the manufacture of the new tubes. Even the resin used when bending the tight radius tubes came from one of Joe Potts' friends who he built racing cars with.





 It should be noted that the frame has been made to the same specification that Bob McIntyre raced the original Razorblade from the Silverstone Saturday meeting onwards. Before the Silverstone meeting, Alec Crummie added two extra tubes running from swinging arm pivot to the top tubes in order to increase the frame stiffness. The original 500cc Razorblade subsequently had these tubes removed (but the original brazing can still be felt) when it was converted into a 250cc Manx by Archie and George Plenderleith.

The front brake has also been sourced for the Potts Desmo. It is just as Joe was going to fit into it – a 4LS Gilera unit that McIntyre brought back Bellshill. The brake has had the ‘Potts treatment’ in the same manner as he did to the original.

Gilera 4LS drum brake modifed in the same manner as Joe Potts

The Razorblade frame 50 years on

1958 in Joe Potts’ workshop in Bellshill:

2011 the original Potts 500 Razorblade frame with two replicas: 

Riders I admire - Brian Stonebridge

The second rider I have included in the ‘riders I admire’ series is Brian Stonebridge. Brian was born in Cambridgeshire and went on to become one of the top Scramblers on the 1950’s.

Brian started scrambling in 1948 on a 350cc BSA Goldstar. It didn’t take long for him to be recognised as a talent by one of the factory teams. From 1950-1954 Brian became a Works Matchless rider. In 1950 Brian won a gold medal for Matchless at the International Six Day Trials (ISDT).

In 1955 Stonebridge moved to BSA and was awarded the ACU Scrambles Drivers’ Star. At BSA Brian undertook development work in the competition shop, and it was here that he met two-stroke tuning expert Herman Meier. Brian with Herman realised that the lightweight 150cc BSA Bantam could be developed into a successful Scrambling machine.

With BSA investing less in their competition shop, Brian moved to Greeves in 1957 to be a Works rider, competitions manager and development engineer. It was at Greeves that Stonebridge really started to shine as both a rider and more significantly in the development of off-road machines.

Greeves were a small factory when Brian arrived, but within a few years he had turned them into one of the most important players in the world scene of off-road competition. Brian developed the Greeves trails machine into the highly successful TA – the first of the Scottish trials line. Brian took his second gold ISDT medal on a modified version of this machine – the first ever for a Greeves rider.

Brian had also spent much time tuning the 197cc Villiers 9E engine. He had nearly doubled the power output from it, and when fitted into the Greeves Scramblers it became a highly successful machine. The little Greeves in the capable hands of Stonebridge was able to humble machines of much bigger capacities. It was Brian’s pioneering work on the Greeves that showed that a nimble light machine was the tool to have for off-road competition.

In 1959 Brian and Greeves entered the F.I.M. 250cc European Motocross Championship (effectively the World Championship) and finished a superb 2^nd. In fact without injury Brian might have won easily.

When Brian first moved to Greeves in 1957 they were selling 500 machines in a year. Such was the impact of Stonebridge that in 1958 they sold 2,500 and by 1960 sales reached 10,500!

On the 21^st of October 1959 Brian Stonebridge died in a road traffic accident. Brian was the passenger in Bert Greeves’s Austin on the way back from a trip to the Hepolite factory when the car was involved in a crash with a lorry. Brian died within two hours of the crash, but thankfully Bert Greeves recovered after spending over a week in hospital.

Such was the high esteem that other competitors and the general public held Stonebridge in, for the Brian Stonebridge memorial Scramble held at Hawkstone Park in 1960 a record 84,000 spectators attended.

Even with Stonebridge gone, his development work and influence was still apparent. For 1960 the European Motocross Championship was won by Dave Bickers on a Greeves and the feat was repeated in 1961. Greeves were a company that competed ‘well above their weight’ and won in the field of off-road motorcycle competitions, and much of their success is owed to the great riding and development skills of the great Brian Stonebridge.

Riders I admire - Jimmy Guthrie

Jimmy Guthrie was born in Hawick, Scotland and prior to WW2 he was (to me) the finest professional motorcycle racer. Early successes for Jimmy included winning the Scottish Speed Championships at St Andrews (on Sand) in 1926 and 1927.

Jimmy Guthrie after winning the 1936 Senior TT

Jimmy’s first TT victory came in the 1930 Lightweight race aboard an AJS. However, he will always be synonymous for riding with Joe Craig’s Norton team, who he joined as a Works Rider in 1931. With the Norton team Guthrie became almost unbeatable. In his career he took 19 Grand Prix victories, 6 TT victories and three wins at the NW 200.  

As well as in his own country, on the European continent that Guthrie was held in very high esteem. His performances on Nortons had taken him to four European Championships and the Works teams from Germany and Italy couldn’t beat the British combination of man and machine. Jimmy would get to the different European races with his bike in the parcel carriage of trains!

His most famous trophy was for his victory at the 1936 German GP, which was presented by Adolf Hitler (who was expecting a German victory). The following year he was invited back to race in Germany, where the German BMW were planning to beat Guthrie and his Norton. In the race he had built up a two minute lead as he headed into the final lap. It was on that final lap that he crashed and sustained fatal injuries. Stanley Woods who was an eye witness to the crash insisted that Guthrie was taken out by Kurt Mansfeld on his DKW. Jimmy was lapping Kurt, and according to Woods, Mansfeld pulled out in front of Guthrie and drove him off the road. Some say it was an accident, as Mansfeld was trying to prove he was as quick as Guthrie, but Woods went even further to suggest Mansfeld did it on purpose as the Nazi regime was unhappy at the British riders being so successful. Stanley Woods' explanation does seem a little far fetched. Other sources clamined the connecting rod on Guthrie's machine was broken and this could have caused the crash (however it is possible that a con-rod can break after a crash due to the engine over-revving). 



NSU team paying their respects at the Guthrie memorial in 1954. From left to right Paul Hermann Muller, Rupert Hollaus, Werner Haas and Hans Baltisberger.