Kingswood in Bristol was the home of Douglas Motors…
That fact..
is celebrated every year with the ‘Douglas Cavalcade.’ Douglas owners from all over converge on Kingswood Heritage Centre, Warmley to celebrate the history of the company. The site has seen several incarnations from pin making to Kleen-e-ze household ware. It’s an interesting museum, should you be in the area but to catch the bikes you need to be there for the Cavalcade. It’s organised by the London Douglas MCC and although Douglas majored on the flat twin and little else until they became the importers for Vespa, this event serves to show the variety created within that concept.
Post war, Douglas engines lay across the frame, BMW style; using an engine created during the WWII as a power plant for a portable generator unit. The maroon 80 Plus model and it’s racing sibling, the 90 Plus, were the flagships of the range. But pre-war, Douglases had their cylinders mounted fore and aft and they made their name in two spheres. First during the Great War, where over 25,000 belt driven 2.75hp (350cc) models were supplied to allied troops – so impressed were the riders with the gentle two-speeder that it remained in production into the mid-‘twenties. Second was Dirt Track racing. The low slung Duggies were perfect for the new sport that arrived in the UK in 1928 and was to become speedway.
The most interesting vehicle on the day, both technically and historically, was Henry Body’s Iota Stromboli car. Made from a racing Douglas with the front and back sawn off and inserted into a space frame chassis, this is an historic race car built locally in the late ‘forties by Joe Fry (of Chocolate Cream fame).
It’s whereabouts have been unknown for years but Henry had it tucked away somewhere and has recently recommissioned it. On Bank Holiday Monday we went to see Henry, to interview him for a feature to appear in a forthcoming Classic Bike. He’s an incredible character from the blood’n’guts school of motorcycle competition and he’s led an amazing life out there, doing it. My first memory of him was blasting a Honda CBX into the weeds on his 1928 Douglas at Brands in the late ‘eighties. He was also a great support to Judy, while she herself was sprinting a DT Douglas a few years ago. Inspirational, I’d call it…
TT model Douglas with holes for spare plugs threaded in the tank.
This week…
We have mostly been preparing bikes for the VMCC Banbury Run. Judy’s ’28 Scott has been jumping out of gear and I need – well, want – to change the mag on my ’28 BSA.
Here’s a funny thing…I had a call from a fella who has broken an inlet rocker on his L28 BSA, asking if I had a spare. As it happens I got two spare inlets with my bike, but rocker gear is extremely hard to find for these BSAs and I might have trouble getting another if I need it. So I told him I could help but would prefer to swap for an exhaust, leaving me a spare for either. Turned out that in his quest he had already found a spare exhaust so a deal was done. Then, blow me down, if I didn’t find another inlet rocker at Kempton autojumble on the way down to the West Country, so I’m back where I started plus an exhaust rocker…
Now that, as Paul Daniels used to say, is magic!
Cheerio
R
Have fun at Banbury – you seem uncharacteristically well prepared, fixing things in advance. We’d love to come down to watch the event & say hello to you and Judy but domestic duties (and an imminent holiday that includes watching the Catalan MotoGP)leave us short of time.
Joe Fry was of course the creator with Hugh Dunsterville of the legendary Freikaiserwagen, a hillclimb special featuring a supercharged V twin Blackburne engine and then two blown Blackburne V twin engines. It was also a rear engined front cockpit device, rather similar to the prewar Auto Unions which perhaps inspired him. Its best performances came in 1949 when it held the course record at Shelsley Walsh and Blandford, but Joe lost his life in it a year later.