Wednesday 21 March 2012

NSU SPORTMAX 250 LIVE IN ACTION 1955 . . . . MY RESPONSE TO BCM's RESPONSE TO ALL THE RESPONSE TO THE OSSA "ELECTRIC SHAVER" BIKE, [THE 'SHAVER' BIT BRILLIANTLY COINED BY KIM AT BCM] . . . . BCM's REFERENCE TO THE OSSA 'MONOCASCO' G.P BIKE THAT WAS THE LIKELY POINT OF INSPIRATION, REMINDED ME OF ANOTHER LIGHTWEIGHT EUROPEAN MONOCOQUE ROCKET THAT ACHIEVED GREAT SUCCESS OVER TEN YEARS EARLIER . . . . THE NSU "SPORTMAX" 250



The Sportmax, not unlike it's younger, 2 stroke offshoot, the Ossa, only produced about 30 bhp at the arse end and even though it was an ohc 4 stroke, the combination of power to weight ratio and the pedalling talents of Herman Muller was more than enough to take the 250cc G.P title in 1955. The little NSU was also ridden with some degree of success by the likes of John Surtees and my mum . . . .

The advantages of the monocoque frame construction that embued the dustbin faired Sportmax with excellent handling characteristics were very likely remembered by the Ossa engineers and designers when formulating the plans for the Monocasco a decade later . . . . sadly, as Mr Boyle, a talent of prodidgious dimension himself, pointed out, the Ossa never met with quite the same success as it's German forebare, the NSU Sportmax . . . .

I guess the concept of the whole monocoque caper must've had some long term merits . . . . look at frame development of a majority of full on race bikes over the last thirty years, that's gotta be saying something about their potential for optimising frame functionality.

**** In the footage I've lifted from the "VintageMotorChannel" on PooTube, it shows clearly the hand formed aluminium "dustbin" fairing that was as revolutionary for it's day as the rest of the bike was, [until 'streamliner' fairings were banned . . . naturally !!!] apart from the fact they just oozed "hand fabricated" . . . . finally, it wasn't only the Sportmax that copped the pressed and welded monocoque backbone . . . . The Max, The Supermax, The Rennfox and the Rennmax, not to mention the groovy "Quickly" moped, they all sported the "onedick" spine . . . .  

2 comments:

  1. 'wotcha whitey, if you fancy doing some more digging regarding the nsu's, try the series of books by mick walker, the 'german racing motorcycles' and 'european racing motorcycles' books are well worth a purchase, the bloke is a proper font of knowledge about competition motorcycles, thank's for your comment's about not making thursday's practice day, i'm crossing my fingers that we make the season's opening day on 15th april, told you that the good people would find you in the end mate, the way you are attracting followers must tell you about the quality of the blog, keep it up youth, nite, nite, lovey x

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  2. Ta moochly Lovey . . . not unlike your own, sweet self, just enjoy doin this thang, it's a free and beautiful world . . . mostly . . . and I have a belief in myself and what I'm doing and it's a total thrill knowing others do to, as you told me, keep on keeping on youth. Poor old Mr Walker mate, what a loss to the classic bike world, I must have over a dozen of his books and more where he was a contributor, in fact, it was from "German Racing Motorcycles" that I really fell in love with the entire NSU shindig, he was clearly a research freak . . . get on the blower and hustle those parts up mate, fuck their glib, empty words about turnaround times !!! BTW, see how some poor kid has been lumped with a sex offenders rap for streaking at the footy . . . seems a little outta whack to me . . . ???? Cheers Lovey, must get on out into the rain and sell some bloody vino. X

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