The Velocette Factory....... looking through some Veloce Ltd. and other sources photographs......

As I've said in the several previous posts (1), (2) (3) I've done on Velocette publicity photographs, I often acquire more, many from different sources....
Veloce Ltd of course manufactured the Velocette motorcycle....
Lets have a brief look at the factory at York Road,Hall Green in Birmingham they occupied from around 1927 and some earlier factory pics in the 1920's.
Originally it was the old Humphrey and Dawes works in which OK Supreme motorcycles were made.
Following the success of the K engine in the 1926 IOM Junior TT, demand increased for Velocette motorcycles and a decision was made to expand and thus the purchase of the Hall Green factory occured.
Veloce Ltd remained in this site until their closure in February 1971.
Veloce Ltd were in several premises prior to Hall Green....
The following is not a complete list year wise, but a guide...
In 1905 Veloce Ltd was in Gisolt Passage, Spring Hill, Birmingham
In 1913 Veloce Ltd was in Fleet St., Birmingham 
1920 Catalogues show Veloce Ltd in Victoria Rd., Six Ways, Aston in Birmingham.
Then by 1927 Veloce Ltd was in York Rd., Hall Green, Birmingham

So I'm not always sure of their origin, but there is a good chance they came from "The MotorCycle" and "MotorCycling" , the copyright of which is now held by Morton's Motorcycle Media in the UK and to who I acknowledge credit if applicable.
Some are from Titch Allen's "The Velocette Saga", published originally over 16 editions of the monthly magazine "MotorCycle Sport"from Jan.1969 to April 1970, then as a hardback book under the same name in 1994. Others are from the Burgess & Clew book "Always in the Picture", first published 1971. Then of course Ivan Rhodes, "Velocette...Technical Excellence Exemplified", first published 1990.
Mick Walker's "Velocette, production motorcycles" publishes 2006; George Beresford's "The Story of the Velocette", published 1949 and Len Moseley's "My Velocette Days", published 1974.
Dai Gibberson came over for the 2012 National Velocette Rally at Bundanoon, NSW in October and we shared files.
Some of these are from his sources....thanks Dai.
So lets have a look at the Velocette Factory over the years...

 

Hall Green works.......

Around 1939, Stanley Woods opens the next test house .

Tommy Mutton in the new test house with a mk.8 KTT engine on test.

Drilling LE crankcases and above photo setting up LE conrods for machining.Welding the box section LE frame in a jig.

Must have been cold in winter in the works....

Peter Goodman, to the right, with the last LE off the production line at liquidation of Veloce Ltd.

After liquidation in Feb. 1971, the Veloce Ltd sign is now gone....

The remains of Veloce Ltd, a one proud manufacturer of Velocette motorcycles, 14.06.1972....

A Pictorial look at the 1976 Castrol 6 Hour Production race..held at Amaroo Park Raceway on the northern outskirts of Sydney...

I've always been a rather keen photographer, especially in my earlier days for black and white images and some of my early work was done with Voigtlander Bessamatic M cameras,  Zeizz Ikon Icarex cameras, Leica M3 camera... all 35mm format as well as a Mamiya C3 2¼” square 120 format camera.

I used mostly Ilford FP3  125ASA B &W film, developing it myself and utilised a Durst enlarger with Schneider lenses for printing photos on Ilford paper.

I have some some years back converted to Canon digital SLRs, progressing through EOS350, EOS450, EOS550 to my current EOS6D. 

Enough of this technical stuff....

Many of the film rolls I shot were cut into strips and filed into envelopes for later printing but for some reason this didn't always occur and recently looking through my negative collection I've come across the unprinted ones...

Using a Microtek 1000XL larger format scanner with negative capability and software I quite like, the images have finally "come to life"...

In the early 1970's I rode BMW motorcycles and a friend, John Galvin who was the Metzeler tyre importer to Australia became involved in the Castrol 6 Hour production machine race. A race for standard and I emphasis standard motorcycles...little in the way of modifications were allowed. I rode in the 1971 event on my 1967 Velocette Venom Thruxton 500.

People from the NSW BMW distributor, Tom Byrne, Don Bain in particular who I knew from my interest in Velocette and it's earlier successes in Australian racing from 1930-1955 when he was a  champion rider, asked me to lap score for them in the event.

So let's look at my "photographic involvement" in the 1976 event. One which carried the hopes of some of the major motorcycle distributors in Australia...as this list from Jim Scaysbrook's excellent book on the race series from 1970-1987 shows....

 

The practice period for the event is in the week leading up to the race on the Sunday. Riders mill around awaiting a practice session to start...

Joe Eastmure and Dave Burgess on their R90S #8

 Murray Sayle, Bryan Hindle (back to camera) Greg Hansford and Helmut Dahne.

 

Preparing for the Le Mans start....

 

The start sequence....

Tony Hatton #2 BMW R90S and Roger Heyes #3 Team Avon Z1-B Kawasaki

The first two hour stint over, the Hatton/Blake R90S refuels....

Team Avon had  to refuel every 1.5 hours, 4 stops to the BMW teams two stops....

Team Avon had practiced the refuelling stops and they did their stop to take off in 6.5 seconds...you read it right...!

As shown in an earlier post of the tyre war between Metzeler and Avon, the Avon on the 4 cylinder Z1-B 900 Kawasaki was marginal to last the distance...they had to be able to get out of the pits after their last refuelling stop avoiding being ordered to change the tyre, a certain loss of the race.

Their last refuelling stop caught the chief scrutineer, Chris Peckham, off guard and he's pictured rushing up to look at the rear tyre, but they got out before he could see the tyre and below shows the tyre or what remains of it after the race....!

The results of the 1976 Castrol 6 Hour race from page 103 of Jim Scaysbrook's excellent book of the race's history 1970-1987 and also from Jim's book, p.92, the poster by artist Alan Puckett depicting the winning tactic for the race that year by team Avon...the 6.5 second fuel stops.....

 

The cover of Jim Scaysbrook's excellent book.....