Fullauto Technologies is SOLD!

Madnorton said:

Have you ever wondered why he does not still do them as the original 850 style. It would certainly have been the parts, it did not work, I believe if you ask Steve he will tell you the same and thus he came up with his design as it was the more stable.

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Steve made barrels first for racers. The CRMC rules were changed after he had developed the barrels, to allow 850 style barrels. He and others have said he stuck closely to Dunstall style to avoid eligibility problems. Don't forget the race class open to Commando based twins is up to end '72. I have seen through bolting done on old 750 barrels

I have just returned a trophy to CRMC with Steve's name on it from his CRMC race days! I have discussed the eligibility exemption for 850 barrels with the then eligibility officer, also a former Norton twin racer! Not everyone uses alloy barrels, the change allowed 850 style barrels and improved race reliability compared to old and fragile 750 items. I have seen through bolting modifications done on old 750 barrels with no eligibilty issues, even if it isn't pretty!

Norman White made his own alloy barrels, to 850 spec. Last time I was there he had an unused blank on the shelf. I was interested in having them sleeved/completed. We discussed it, he said he had considered producing more, but would need a new foundry to do the casting and he felt that was a past project and didn't really want to do it again. And of course he had no issue with iron barrels in all applications considering that new iron (850 style) barrels are readily available in 750 and 850 forms.

I'm surprised that nobody from Europe or America has bought the rights for the Britten race bike design from New Zealand and gone into production. It seemed to do a lot that was good.

The Britten was awesome. I was admiring the one in the Barber museum last week. Just stunning.

But in terms of your point Al, they were all completely hand made, there was no tooling for anythything.

So all you’d be buying would be the design, for a race bike, no road bike design.

I guess there was no market for such designs. Now of course, they’d be old hat and out classed, so there’s no demand today.

I've been to a couple of recent Britten shows here in Christchurch, with talks from Kirsteen and several people from the Britten team. It was mentioned that after 90 minutes racing the bike noticeably lost power due to mechanical wear. They said after races they'd just leave them parked anywhere at home, whereas it's different now they're valued around $1 million. The racing rules had changed and they thought John would have moved onto something else. I repaired one of his metal lamps, had a shade cast in the shape of a paua shell. Interesting seeing how he'd put it together, although think my wiring was tidier.The owner had a parrot lamp made out of leadlight that looked lovely.

G81 Can Cycle said:

Yes it is true, Fullauto production will be moving to the US. We are keeping the Fullauto name as tribute to Ken and the name origin in the firearms market. As far as cylinders go, take a look at the billet Triumph cyclinders already made at STS. As time goes on I will let everyone know how this wonderful product will be marketedView attachment 7349 View attachment 7350

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Those Triumph cylinders are gorgeous...are they carved from a single block? PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE! develop a set of Triumph cylinders and head that has cast in ( or bored in ) pushrod tunnels to ELIMINATE the tin pushrod tubes.