Friday, December 18, 2020

Hesketh Introduction, April 1981


It is rare that anyone has the chance of seeing the fulfillment of a dream. For me it started 4 years ago, with the decision to create and manufacture a British motorcycle which would cater for the requirements of the true enthusiast It has been achieved without compromise and with the finest attributes of tradition and modern-day refinement.
I hope that you will be able to share with all of us at Hesketh Motorcycles the experience of owning and riding the finest road motorcycle in the world.
 The Right Hon. Lord Hesketh










 Previous post here.

4 comments:

VectorWarbirds said...

Sounds like a lot of lofty bullshit eh?

"The bikes were heavy, made worse by a high riding style; and unreliable, with numerous manufacturing problems adding to an overheating rear cylinder due to lack of air flow. The resultant bad press combined with an underdeveloped bike, lack of cash and a collapsing market meant that after the production of 139 bikes, the company went into receivership."

rats said...

Ugh. Yeah, lofty baloney for a lofty baloneymobile.

(But, I mean, um, THANKS, Mr. G!)

Mister G said...

Ahhh, it was a noble attempt, suffering mostly from a lack of development time and money! Ok, it never appealed to me either. Pretty fancy brochure though.

Graham Clayton said...

A second attempt was made to manufacture the Hesketh in 1983, with the V1000 sporting a fairing and called the Vampire. This was less successful than the original, with only 50-odd made. Hesketh washed his hands of the business and sold the rights to his R&D manager Mick Broom, who attempted to fix the problem by getting owners to ship the engines by freight to England, where they were rebuilt, and then returned to the owners by freight delivery!