The Revelutionary Napier?

[oldbelly]

Going on from the "other" thread.Mike Richards mentioned the Napier, what was that???

[steve-e]

Mostly a mistake? I remember the video of it going 'into' the hairpin at Mallory with I.A. at the controls. I remember watching Roger Lovelock riding it at Brands at a club meeting. I have a vague recollection of the scrutineers paying it an excessive amount of attention and trying to find something to fail it on. Whatever they found to fail it on was circumnavigable.

[Bob B]

Pics anyone - please

[G JONES]

what was that???

And I thought it was just me that didn't know what it was

[steve-e]

It was a green thing, the driver laid down on it almost flat, the passenger was behind rather than next to the driver in an aluminium half barrel. It was fantastic on lefts but wouldn't turn right I think. Had interesting front suspension from what I remember but Roger would be the one to tell us about it.

[mrequipe]

Kaye Griffiths a car racer and the man who built it ask me to go and have a look at it He had it in an underground night club in the middle of nowhere (princes risborough if I remeber right)
It was a piece of 25 mm carbon fibre with everything bolted to it, as Steve said the driver lay down flat in the middle with car type controls, he hired a drawf to go in the pig feeder across the back the ACU didnt like it but he got it passed It suffered from bump steer so I put him in touch with some race car designers, one thought was to put hydraulic steering on it
I thought it was great a huge change to the sardine can thinking

[steve-e]

Kaye Griffiths, as in the Napier Inn in Oxfordshire? Would that be the same man and where the name came from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Napier_Inn" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And fairly near Princes Risborough too

[mrequipe]

Thats him

[steve-e]

Roger's going to have a look see if he can dig any pics out

[Bob B]

Napier was also a giant in the UK car and engineering industry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier_%26_Son" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ACER]

Remember the Motor Cycle News did an article on this.The dwarf used to be a circus.The guy was a bit eccentric to say the least!!!!

[Ian E]

It was the wierdest thing you ever saw, It was also really clever, and a complete failure.

It was so far out, that you got the feeling that the person who designed it had never seen a sidecar before so had no preconceptions about how it should look.

It was one of the lowest Bikes that was ever built, only thing like it for driver position was the unorthodox, and then the passenger tray at the rear, where he curled up and hung on was a good idea too, as the weight distriburution was equal at all times.

The main thing I remember though was, and I say this sadly, was, it looked like a Soap dish and was a horrible F''cking Green colour, the sort that your nan would put up in her Hall way, except for that it had not much more going for it.

Last I saw of it, was it hitting the wall going to shaw hairpin at mallory on a TV press day and the passenger ending up on the bank on the inside of the hairpin.

[mum e]

saw a photo of it the other day , when looking for something else, will have a look tommorrow to see if l can find it again. Now what album was it in. and it was green.

[steve-e]

A pic from mum of the napier, just trying to enhance a couple of others, this came up not too bad compared to the original

[steve-e]