Beschreibung:

Although it had proved fast enough to win the 1933 Lightweight TT in Syd Gleave’s hands, Excelsior’s complex, twin-cam, radial four-valve Mechanical Marvel proved something of a disappointment thereafter, and at the end of the 1934 season the Tyseley firm opted for a simpler design - the Manxman. Like the Marvel, the Manxman engine was built by Blackburne, though increasing dissatisfaction with its engine supplier forced Excelsior to take over production themselves early in 1936. A single-overhead-camshaft, two-valve design, the Manxman was built in 250, 350, and 500cc capacities. Road and race versions were offered, though the 500 was only ever marketed as a sports roadster. Although it never won a TT, the Manxman enjoyed considerable success in international racing and the Manx Grand Prix, Denis Parkinson winning the Lightweight race three times on the trot between 1936 and 1938. In the 1938 Lightweight event Parkinson was followed home in 2nd place by Excelsior-mounted J A Worswick, a rider who, like Parkinson, had been provided by the factory with a works-type spring frame intended for general availability in 1939. Worswick had made his MGP debut in 1937 riding the Manxman offered here to 5th place in the Lightweight race, in a time of 3 hours 29 minutes and 10 seconds and average speed of 64.96mph, and an ex-Jock West BMW Kompressor to 15th in the Senior. After the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Air Force and was killed on active service in 1940. The accompanying old-style (continuation) logbook, issued by Grimsby CBC in October 1946, records the machine’s date of first registration as 4th August 1937, ‘VV’ being a Northamptonshire mark. The first owner recorded in this logbook is one Sydney Harrison, and a further three owners are listed, all in the Grimsby area, up to 1958 when the ‘book was last stamped. The last owner listed is J J McVeigh, of Wood’s Patrick Street Garage, Grismby from whom the vendor’s father purchased the machine in July 1979 (invoice included). Prior to that transaction, the vendor’s father had kept and raced the Manxman, before rebuilding it for Mr McVeigh in 1977. He continued to campaign it, mainly in VMCC events, into the 1980s. We understand that the machine has not been used since his death in 1996. No factory records exist of Manxman frame/engine numbers, but research undertaken by recognised authorities and based on other surviving Manxmen indicates that this machine’s combination is almost certainly original. What is known is that engine number ‘BBAR/S 114’ was returned to the factory on several occasions in the late 1930s for overhaul and updating. A copy of a factory dynamometer test sheet for ‘BBAR/S 114’ is included in the sale, together with correspondence (dated August 1993) between Sydney Harrison and the machine’s late owner concerning its provenance. (Harrison recalls in this letter that he purchased the ex-Worswick Manxman from an address in The Potteries (possibly Burslem) for £95, pushing the machine home after it had been delivered to Grimsby Town Station). A rare opportunity to acquire a fine example of one of the most desirable thoroughbred racing motorcycles of the 1930s, possessing in-period Manx Grand Prix history.