Greeves Motorcycles

Greeves Motorcycles Ltd
legal form	Limited
founding	1951 (1999)
resolution	1977
Reason for dissolution	insolvency
Seat	Thundersley + Chelmsford ( Essex ), United Kingdom
management	Bert Greeves , Richard Deal
Branch	Motorcycle manufacturer
Website	http://www.greevesmotorcyclesltd.com

The Greeves Ltd. is a British motorcycle manufacturer, mainly motorcycles for the Trial Sport and manufactures off-road market. The current owner Richard Deal bought the rights to Greeves in May 1999. The first company by that name had built motorcycles since 1952. She made additional sales on the basis of a contract with the Ministry of Pensions for her Invacar , a three-wheeled vehicle for the disabled. Greeves won many trial events and successfully established their products on the US market, but they had to stop manufacturing in 1977 after a fire in the production hall. The new company continued designing motorcycles and released the first new Greeves trial motorcycles in 20 years in January 2009. These had a completely new two-stroke engine from British production with a displacement of 280 cm³.

history

Invacar model 70

The first company founded by Bert Greeves ( MBE was founded), which was Invacar Ltd . Greeves was mowing the lawn in front of his Worcestershire home when he had the idea of ​​installing his lawnmower's motor in his disabled cousin's wheelchair. So he invented the Invacar. Invacar Ltd was founded in 1952 in Thundersley near Southend-on-Sea in Essex and won the Ministry of Pensions tender for a motorized three-wheel vehicle for the disabled.

Encouraged by this success, Bert Greeves also ventured into the motorcycle market. In his spare time he was a dedicated trial rider and began collecting vintage motorcycles, including a Triumph from 1912 with the registration number OLD 1 . His disabled cousin Derry Preston-Cobb supported him in his project. Derry's Invacar, which had a more powerful engine, was used for promotional purposes and was happy to overtake other surprised drivers on the streets of Southend-on-Sea. In collaboration they developed a prototype with a 197 cc single - cylinder two-stroke engine from Villiers - with the Greeves emblem on the tank. The motorcycles were actually an additional business for the manufacturer of three-wheeled disabled vehicles and so the development of prototypes had to be integrated into the daily workflow if there were gaps. Bert Greeves was a motorcycle enthusiast in his youth and always wanted to be a motorcycle manufacturer. The first Greeves motorcycle was built in mid-1951 and had rubber suspension on the front and rear. This unusual suspension system was derived directly from the patented systems for the disabled vehicles. The rear wheel was suspended in a pivoted fork and connected by rods to a rubber torsion element under the seat. There were also friction shock absorbers that could be adjusted by hand. The front fork was also unusual with its short swing arm mounted in rubber. It was later called “Banana Leading Link Front Fork”. Motorcycle production began in the fall of 1953 and the new models had a special frame in which the steering head and a massive front girder were cast into a single, large aluminum casting in a double-T shape. This part was made in the new light metal foundry that had been added to Greeves' factory. The tubular frame was placed in the mold and the rest of the frame was cast around it. This made the frame particularly stable. The frame was cast from LM6 silicon aluminum light metal. This was considered to be more stable than aluminum tube and has proven itself in the rough practice of international trial competitions. Engine protection plates, which were also made of cast light metal, were attached to this.

Derry Preston-Cobb became sales manager of the motorcycle department and initially there were three models, a scrambler , a street motorcycle with three-speed transmission and another version with four-speed transmission. At the 1954 motorcycle exhibition in Earls Court they brought out the Fleetwing with a 242 cc two-cylinder two- stroke engine from British Anzani . The engine had actually been developed for motor boats and had a crankshaft with a hollow center section that acted as a rotary valve . The Fleetwing only managed 97 km / h top speed and was only built until 1956, while British Anzani engines were still in stock. In 1957 there was another Fleetwing, this time with a 249 cc Villiers engine. The new motorcycle was more powerful than its predecessor and managed a top speed of at least 112 km / h. The gearboxes came from Albion in Birmingham , but were replaced by their own designs from 1964 onwards. The light, powerful machine was able to prevail on the trial market against competitors from Triumph and BSA .

By 1962 there were eleven models in the Greeves range. The off-road motorcycles were also developed in cooperation with Queen's University Belfast , where the later model Greeves QUB was built. The last Challenger model was built in 1968 and replaced the Motocrosser Griffon with 250 or 380 cc displacement in 1969 . The old short-arm suspension of the front wheel was also no longer available. It was replaced by a conventional telescopic fork because it had a greater spring deflection than the short swing arm . The former front beam made of light metal casting has also been abolished. It gave way to a new frame made of Reynolds-531-chrome-molybdenum-steel with ordinary tube underlay.

Greeves also built a successful export and soon the majority of the motorcycles produced were being delivered to the USA. Greeves became so successful in the USA that they had a decisive influence on the growth of off-road motorcycling with their street-legal off-roader, the Ranger .

Competitive successes

Off-road competitions were the main use of the Greeves motorcycles. 1956 hired Greeves the motocross driver Brian Stonebridge and took part with a works team in the Motocross World Championship . Stonebridge became the company's race director and development engineer because he was an experienced two-stroke tuner and was able to significantly increase the performance of Villiers engines. In April 1957 Brian Stonebridge managed to beat the 500 cc motorcycles with the much smaller Greeves machines on the demanding and mountainous Hawkstone Park course: he won the 350 cc class and came second in the 500 cc Class. In this way he established the Greeves' reputation as a real off-road competition motorcycle. The next Greeves model was called Hawkstone so that one could profit financially from this racing success. One began to specialize in motocross motorcycles ridden by champions such as Peter Hammond, Jack Simpson and Norman Sloper.

In 1958, Stonebridge led a three-man Greeves team to the International Six-Day Race in West Germany , put in a flawless run and won another gold medal. In October 1959, Stonebridge tragically died in a car accident. Bert Greeves was at the wheel of the car and Stonebridge was in the passenger seat. They were on their way back from a factory tour in Bradford . Bert Greeves was only slightly injured in the frontal collision, but before the seat belts were introduced, the accident was fatal for Stonebridge; He died later at the accident site.

After Stonebridge's death, Greeves engaged Dave Bickers , who won the 250cc championship in 1960 and 1961. The winning streak included the Manx Grand Prix and the Scott Trial , the European Trial Championship and the Scottish Six Day Ride , with Bickers winning gold medals in the ISDT and ACU 250cc races. Bert Greeves also hired Bill Wilkinson , the Yorkshire motorcycle trials rider who made headlines for winning the British Experts Trial in 1960 . The first time this competition was won with a two-stroke motorcycle. This was a major achievement for Greeves.

Greeves 250DCX Sportsman (1962)

In 1963 the Greeves model range still included the 250 DC Sports Twin , and two new models with the most modern GRP tanks, GRP handlebar grips and plastic mudguards. It was the 250 DD Essex and the 250 DCX Sportsman. In the same year Greeves was to provide the motorcycles for the British ISDT team. This was remarkable because the team had previously ridden motorcycles with four-stroke twins. Greeves built three special motorcycles for this mission in the mountains of Czechoslovakia . The engines were heavily modified Villiers MK 36A. Instead of the usual Villiers crankshafts, they had Alpha ones . The square cylinders and cylinder heads came from Greeves' light metal foundry and were painted matt black with heat protection paint. One of the drivers, Triss Sharp, had problems starting, but his brother Brian Sharp and the third driver, Peter Stirland, won gold medals. The only woman in the competition also rode a Greeves machine and won a bronze medal.

With the Silverstone 250 cm³ , Greeves also successfully participated in road races. Although the machines were not as fast as some of their competitors, they proved to be reliable and were procured as standard machines by the Mortimer Road Racing School . Gordon Keith won the Manx Grand Prix in 1964 with the Greeves racing machine and drove the fastest lap with an average speed of 140.34 km / h. This was the fastest average speed ever achieved by a British 250cc motorcycle on the Isle of Man (although Peter Inchley reached 149.26 km / h on the Villiers Starmaker Special . It was a Cotton frame, an advanced one Bultaco Starmaker engine and suspension , so not a purely British product.) The win gave the Greeves factory a significant boost and was important to the UK at a time when the sport was slowly being dominated by foreign machines. It led to a great deal of interest in Greeves' road machines, including some British police forces, concerning the larger two-cylinder model with radio equipment.

In 1964 Greeves also brought out the Challenger , which won the Terry Cups Trial in the first race with Garth Wheldon as a driver . In 1967 there was a 346 cc version of the Challenger and a 350 cc road racing machine called the Oulten. A special export model called the Ranger was also developed, but in 1968 Villiers withdrew from engine manufacturing and so Greeves decided to abandon the trials market and focus on the motocross market.

end of an era

When the Japanese hit the market - Suzuki dominated the European Championships from 1970 to 1973 - Greeves' sales also fell. The company won an important tender to equip the Royal Artillery's Motorcycle Display Team with motorcycles and developed the Griffon , but due to a change in the law, the Invacar still lost the company's main product (Even in the prime of motorcycle construction, Bert Greeves came forward on the phone with “Invacar Limited”.), its street legal and the Ministry of Pensions decided to purchase a four-wheel replacement. Bert Greeves realized that it was time to get out of business and his cousin Derry Preston-Cobb soon followed suit. The company struggled through 1976, was unable to resume production after a factory fire and went bankrupt .

A new beginning

The old Greeves motorcycles were ideal for the new "classic" class of trial competitions, but spare parts became rare and expensive. The trial rider Richard Deal began with the production of spare parts and later even brought out a motorcycle replica called Greeves Anglian . In May 1999 a new Greeves company was formed in Chelmsford after acquiring naming rights for the UK, US and Europe. Production began, mainly of trial motorcycles. The new company started building Greeves motorcycles from 2000, rebuilding old Greeves motorcycles and sending out spare parts by mail. According to a tradition established by Bert Greeves, the cylinders, cylinder heads, crankcases and aluminum supports were all manufactured in a specialized light metal foundry.

The new 280

By 2009 the company had built 22 Greeves Anglian and four Greeves Pathfinders and restored a number of motorcycles. In 2007 Richard Deal decided to develop a completely new Greeves trial machine - the first in over 20 years. Together with the Rapid Product Development Group at DeMontfort University in Leicester and their master’s students, Greeves engineers worked on the development of a new, lightweight two-stroke engine with a displacement of 280 cc. In order to process components that had already been manufactured in the new engine, they were scanned with a device from the university. Rapid prototyping models of the new engine were then printed out in the university's 3D printer to check their fit prior to creation in metal casting.

Foundry GPD Developments Ltd in Nuneaton , Warwickshire , built the molds using a new method that prints the sand molds directly from CAD data. The prototype parts were cast in the prototype sand molds. After extensive testing and further development, Greeves presented the new motorcycle in 2009 at the Classic Off-Road Show Telford .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Mirco De Cet, Daniel Quentin (editor): The Complete Encyclopedia of Classic Motorcycles . Rebo International 2005. ISBN 978-90-366-1497-9 .
2. ^ New Greeves Trial Bike . Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 2, 2009. 
3. ^ ^{A b c d e} Bob Currie: Great British Motorcycles of the Fifties . Hamlyn Publishing Group 1980. ISBN 0-86363-010-3
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Jim Reynolds: Best of British Bikes . Patrick Stephens 1990. ISBN 1-85260-033-0 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Bob Currie: Classic British Motorcycles . Chancellor Press 1993. ISBN 1-85152-250-6 .
6. ^ Albion Engineering Co. Grace's Industrial Guide
7. ^ History of Greeves. Greeves-riders.org.uk (English)
8. ^ ^{A b c d} Greeves History: Frank Conley . ( Memento of the original from August 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ^ Colin Sparrow: A Brief History of Greeves Motorcycles . Archived from the original on October 7, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 2, 2009. 
10. ↑ Mick Walker: The BSA Gold Star . Redline Books 2004. ISBN 0-9544357-3-7 .
11. ↑ Greeves . cybermotorcycle.com
12. ↑ ^{a b} Greeves . Retrieved May 4, 2009.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Greeves Motorcycles & GPD Developments . Archived from the original on October 7, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 4, 2009. 

Web links

Commons : Greeves  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the new Greeves Motorcycles Ltd. (English)