Xmas reads.
What did you read over the holdays?...apart from this bloody forum.
One book was very special and I gave it to myself,talking to a friend about bikes he mentioned he had just proof read and printed it in his home print shop.He gave me the authors number and I rang him for a copy - only 250 printed but the author says he's nearly out and will do another batch.
Ralph Watson Special Engineer by Trevor Sheffield,actualy he doesn't list himself as author,just reshearch,editing,supporting text,design and production - it's Ralph's book really,but he would never write a book about himself of course.So who is Ralph Watson you ask? I doubt many here have heard the name,but some older members may remember one of his most famous cars - The Lycoming Special.I watched the Lycoming race as a boy and into my teens,with Jim Boyd driving it was unbeatable,our favorite car of the era.What was it?? A flat 4 cyl Lycoming aircraft engine,air cooled and turned upside down,driving through a 1941 Studebaker gearbox,input through the layshaft to step up the gearing,mated to a Ford V8 diff to make a transaxle with inboard brakes and de dion suspn,housed in a space frame and covered in an alloy body.A truly amazing car and one of the most successful to race in this country,the list of it's competition records is over more than 4 pages in the A4 book.The car was never trailered,it was driven to every event as far south as Invergagil,driven to the NZGPs to compete against Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham,then driven home again.
An earlier car of Ralph Watson's was a 3 wheeled BSA powered by a Vtwin.He turned it into a 4 wheeler and constantly developed the car over many years,it was quite succesful in it's day.Many years later he aquired the wreck and rebuilt it,not stopping with just putting it back together he did more improvements to it.Still later he converted it to a rotary valve,utimatly doing over 30,000kms and racing too - most likely the only sucessful rotary valve engine in the world.The BSA ended up with Ralph Watson built crankcase,crankshaft,con rods,pistons,barrels and rotary valve heads.
Ralph Watson has Parkinsons Disease and at this moment is in Aucland Hospital with a broken hip,they are hoping to make his last project - a rotary 7 cyl aircraft engine,built from scratch - a runner before he dies,lets hope he get's to see it running....
Another book I have been reading is Karl Ludvigsen's Classic Racing Engines,which has an indepth look at the most famous racing car engines ever built,the BRM V and H 16s,all of them up to the Mecedes 3.4ltr pushrod V8 they for Indy in 1994.Specialy interesting in light of Ralph Watson,he rebuilt Bugatti's and Alfa's for Ron Roycroft amoungst others.
The last book that I just finished today was The Trekka Dynasty by Todd Niall.The Trekka has the distintion of being the only car designed and produce in New Zealand,some were even exported,never done before,and probably won't be again.They were a nasty piece of crap,a localy made boxy body on an old out of date Skoda Octavia chassis and running gear.They were cheap,that's about all.The book is more a look at the Turner family that built them,kept me interested the whole way through,not what I expected.
We tried to take one up Liverpool st,the steepest hill in Auckland at the time...it was summer and we had the roof off,we took a run from way back down an ally,then charged at the hill in 2nd at valve bounce....half way up my mate tries to get it into 1st...grrrr,grrrrr,grrrrr.....soon we are going backward fast,the brakes won't pull it up,so he spins the wheel and we are sideways on the hill,damn near falling over,then he spins the wheel the other way and we roll down the bottom...phweeew! that was close,bloody close!
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Originally Posted by 6Chris6
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