The recent death of my boyhood hero, Geoff Duke, set me to re-reading his book ' In pursuit of perfection'. For 1958 he commissioned a special lightweight Manx for the 350 class. The oil in frame chassis was designed and produced by Ken Sprayson and short leading link front forks were used. The engine used a one piece forged crank shaft with external flywheel and plain bearing big end in alloy conrod. The special cylinder had a chrome plated bore and the cylinder head used dual Coil springs. Bill Lacey did the engine development work. The lightweight Manx was 50 lbs lighter than the normal one. Apparently it was run with a standard engine at the Nurburgring and with the special engine in testing at Oulton Park.In view of the crippling development costs, Duke called it a day.
I wonder what became of engine and chassis from this promising project?
You can see this very spec…
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You can see this very special Norton Manx next to Ray Amm's Proboscis at the Motorcycle Racing Museum Hockenheim in Germany.
On this website you can see some pictures.Geoff Duke's oil in frame Norton Manx 40M was the first bike with Peel Mountain Mile Fairing. This was the first serial production glasfibre racing fairing. Geoff Duke also hold financial participation at thePeel Engineering Company.