Strange bike in garden

[MICK]

Any one hazard a guess as to what this machine is all about

Christmas quiz

Best answer gets a mince pie 

With Thanks for Dave Sharp for help with the rebuild

[Miti]

Looks good Mick. 

Is she running too..? Or is that pleasure yet to come..?

Jeff

[Rob B]

If only .  .    .       .

She looks even better than the original green one Mick.

Congratulations to you and DS. It only took thirty years to finish it! :-)

RB

[Dave Snr]

That is a seriously beautiful bike.

If only........

Dave H

[MICK]

Hi Jeff,
Its not running yet as its destined for a museum and I think we would destroy the exhausts looks.

I did use the opportunity to update the suspension mounts and size of the units so we are closer to getting the rear suspension working but the engine would be another challenge as while I had all the parts when Paul took over since then the suspension bits have gone missing and the engine parts are with Peter White or elsewhere.

Not impossible to finish but it would take a little time plus hunting the bits time and I am distracted by sun , wine and flying machines though I really enjoyed revisiting the Vortan and giving it a bit of TLC.

I don't believe it was a bad effort considering the budget, year and while it would have changed if we had put it into production it still was a bold statement for 1986

[MICK]

Hi Rob,
Being slow at finishing jobs has its advantages even if its that the wife does not come up with more jobs
You youngsters will learn ;-)

[MICK]

Dave ,

On behalf of the original team we thank you for your comment.

I obviously agree with you as it was intended to be a Hesketh as I would want it.

The difference in the approach to the styling I believe gave us the result you see now.
Normal approach was the engine man does the engine , the frame man does the frame and then the stylist dresses the parts but with such a small team all hands on in this case it was possible to combine all discipline's from the start with things progressing through a few mock ups with changes done on the fly.
As an example the frame and other bits was considered part of the styling with my intentions to keep the body parts down to a bare minimum, the engine wanted to look as big as it was and the chassis as small and light as we could get.

A bikers bike if you like.

The long term plan with the suspension was to make it active with anti dive and wheelie control driven off a throttle system which drove the vacuum which was all linked together. This worked well with the first requirement of getting a mono shock system on the bike without increasing the wheel base.

Mick

[Miti]

I uploaded the pic to the HOC Gallery so we can all enjoy it full size:



If you have more snaps Mick, send them over and I'll add them too

Jeff

[HOCAdmin]

Thanks for the additional photos Mick:







HOCAdmin