BSA's famous 1969 "Girly Advertising."
To kick off the 1969 BSA advertising campaign, USA BSA vice-president Don Brown got an agreement from AMA President Bill Berry to officiate record attempts with the Rocket 3 at Daytona International Speedway. BSA leased the Speedway April 2-5 and hired Dick Mann, Yvone Duhamel, and Ray Hempstead to be the riders for the long-distance speed record attempts. These attempts were being made because the BSA service manager, Herb Nease, said he thought the Rocket 3 bike could go as fast as 130 mph if it was set up carefully to exact factory specs. That got Don's attention because he had a huge respect for Herb's opinion when it came to speed. And, lo and behold, he was right, with a certified kick-ass lap speed of 131.790 mph for the 2.5 mile oval, set by Yvon. Numerous other distance and speed records were also set, like 124.141 for 200 miles. In those days nobody else was even close to those speeds until Kawasaki’s Z1 surpassed them at Daytona in 1972, but then only by a relatively small margin. However, the Kawasaki records were approved by the FIM, which certified them as world records. The BSA records were certified at the 1969 AMA Competition Congress as being set by standard production motorcycles.
1969 April 2-5 Daytona records;
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The four bikes used to set the records were certified by the AMA as being absolutely to factory specifications, except they used K81 Dunlop tires front and rear. The front ribbed tire that came standard would not have endured the heat of high speeds on that track in April. Also, Brown had the standard handlebars replaced with shorter ones, and the front fender was removed because it didn’t allow enough clearance for the K81 tire. That was it, and the project was a big success, according to the July 1969 Cycle Magazine. It might not have saved the Rocket 3 from dying in the market, but it did cause the market to believe that the BSA version was faster than the Triumph version and, at that time, that was all that mattered.
Ogle Design toasterOn a side note - The square tanks? BSA had its own designers at Umberslade but, for some unknown reason they retained Ogle Design, a design house located in Letchworth, to style the new triples. Ogle had racked up design awards for toasters (which are now big collectors’ items in England) but what were their credentials for designing motorcycles? Why did they get design awards for motorcycles that were generally disliked? These are big mysteries still. |
