Trying to date our Owen Greenwood sidecar chassis

[spiney norman]

Help, help,
Historical, fonts of knowledge types please have a read. We are sporadically trying to trace some history for the 16' wheel outfit we race.
We have found out through the kind help of Steve Hicks and Karen Sinderberry that they used to race it in the 90's having bought it from Erol Craven and that it was originaly built by Owen Greenwood wwho raced it himself with a pre unit Triumph motor.
Does anyone know when Owen Greenwood may have built or raced the chassis? 1960's? 70's? I know it's a long shot but we are just curious and knowledge is power and all that. If we are charging around on a piece of history we need to be knowing!
Thanks folks, power to your elbows.
Jon and Sue, Lincoln. 07825 304200

[johnmago]

The chassis is deffo 1960's, I saw it in Owen's workshop in 1970/1971? at this time he was racing the Greenwood Mini

[spiney norman]

Thanks John. Did Owen build and race many sidecar chassis, or is it likely to just be this one? I have heard of the Greenwood Mini but know nothing about the chap apart from that. Have you any idea who may have photos of this sidecar chassis?

[dick tapken]

john,i started racing in 69 on an x owen greenwood triumph that i bought for £95 from a guy in ripley,if you get a photo put up i can compere it with a pic i have when riding it at cadwell

[steve-e]

2 photos from John

[tonybsa2008]

Top pic is a G50 engine,not Triumph.

[666]

your right Tony thats what it says on the caption underneath.

[tonybsa2008]

Guess I can read then,only just though...

[lang]

Owen ceased racing conventional outfits when he built the Mini special in 1965.
His last conventional bike had a laid down 500cc Triumph engine, I went to his shop in Loughbrough and bought the vertical Dellorto carburettors he had used on it, for an outfit I was building using a laid down BSA A65 with the gearbox cut off, and a 5 speed Quaife gearbox fitted.
Owens results with the Mini were outstanding, but somewhat controversial at times.
He finally retired from racing when he sold the Mini in 1968.

[Rogisok]

Re: Owen Greenwoods outfits. I worked with Owen @ Arbour Motors in Leicester in the early 60's while I was very actively racing a Triumph grasstrack outfit. While I was forever picking his brains @ work, I was also a regular visitor to Colby Drive Thurmaston & saw both "laid down" outfit's being built plus the construction of the infamous "Mini". As I remember the G50 500cc outfit was built for use in international events (when the limited capacity was 500cc), The Triumph was originally built as a 650 cc for National & unlimited class events & there was definitely some development work going on to increase it's capacity, seem to remember a "Tunstall" crank being developed & the use of BSA A65 pistons (I think). One of Owens catch phrases was "there's no replacement for CC's"
However I rode passenger on it on it's 1st outing at Kirkby Mallory, then was privileged enough to be allowed to do quite a lot of "shakedown" laps riding it with a fellow co-worker (Les Conquest) in the chair (I think that was a Greenwood attempt to convince me roadracing was the way to go rather than the cut & thrust of grassing, which I eventually did, with fairly disastrous results, but that's another story).
The G50 outfit was sold to a Swiss guy called Edgar Strubb for, believe it or not grassing in Switzerland (they didn't have any road circuits). The Triumph outfit was eventually superseded by the Mini, which I also passengered on around the lanes near Thurmaston (on borrowed trade plates with a BSA bantam silencer) & also rode passenger on it's 1st track test @ Silverstone (where it was televised by ATV I think) & we had to rush home to see ourselves on the local TV news. If the Triumph outfit finished up with a Tiger 100 engine as previously stated by another contributor to this link, I really can't say, but I am fairly certain it had a 650cc lump in it when I rode it, hope this reminiscing helps you in your quest to sort the ancestry of your outfit.
Regards
Roger Womack.

[Phil Davies]

Owen ceased racing conventional outfits when he built the Mini special in 1965.
.............
He finally retired from racing when he sold the Mini in 1968.

Well not quite,
I well remember Owen racing a big wheeled triumph outfit (I presume he built it himself) in the sidecar class at VMCC race meetings in the 1980's, notibly Cadwell full circuit for one - because I followed him round to discover some of the lines (my early racing seasons) - I did this because some people were 'complaining' about his racing lines, which baffled me as I found it all to be very helpful - especially so when I was later going very much faster.

I always silently thanked Owen for the early 'tutorials'

[Bob Zwarts]

That big wheeled Triumph outfit is still around Phil. It was owned and raced by Velo man Stuart Cains in the mid-late 1990's, then ownership passed to Bill Curvis who raced it for a few years. I think that Bill then sold it to a European team. At this time, it was very much as Owen had built it, with the beautifully crafted light alloy wheel arch on the sidecar wheel. Bill must have removed this because he had it for sale at a local autojumble around 3 years ago, along with fibreglass replicas!

[spiney norman]

Thanks so much for the replies Roger, Phil and Bob, yes this is all fitting together now, the outfit we have sounds like it may well be the one mentioned by you Bob and Phil, as ours did have a Triumph engined fitted when it was campaigned by Steve Hicks, France based. Crikey this is turning into a right Hercule Poirot job, the thing has had more owners than ....er it's late.... something which has a lot of owners. I'll see if I can track down either Stuart Cains or Bill Curvis. I'm only trying to date the old heap and maybe get some history/photos if possible so thanks so much for the responses. I'd put a photo of it as it is now on the forum but sadly I'm not bright enough! Jon Ryden

[Bob Zwarts]

I think you have misunderstood me. We seem to talking about two separate, different, outfits here. Owen's big wheeled Triumph outfit, later owned by Stuart and Bill, cannot be the one which you have as that was set up specifically to race with VMCC/BHR with 18" wheels and was sold to someone in Europe.

[Phil Davies]

Bob - I remember vididly that beautifull chariot mudguard, what a work of sheet metal working art, I remember going to Cadwell for a Easter monday meeting - and it snowed (a little bit), I recall thinking, "we are supposed to be racing in this?, what am I doing here"

Jonathon - what Bob said!
The VMCC outfit in the 1980s I was referring to had 18 inch wheels - that's what I meant by big wheeler, not 16 inch compared to mini size