Britten Breaks Records, Builds Bikes
BRITTEN BREAKS RECORDS, BUILDS BIKES
THE BRITTEN V-1000 NOW holds four world speed records, and plans are moving rapidly for a high-power, low-weight Britten Single. About the only thing not moving quickly in Britten’s Christchurch, New Zealand, shop is production of 10 customer bikes.
John Britten, creator of the exotic Twin, says it is taking longer than anticipated to get the $75,000 bikes built to his satisfaction.
“We’re learning quite a lot about manufacturing in relative quantity. The tolerances have to be down to one-thousandth of an inch, so it’s quite a bit more difficult than getting racebik.es together,” he says. “I only want to do 10 so I can maintain a personal relationship with the owners.”
As the end draws near for V1000 production, Britten’s getting ready to unleash his Single. He’s tight with details but says he’s aiming for a 200pound bike making 90 horsepower. Those figures compare most favorably to Ducati’s Supermono, which weighs in at 277 pounds, with a 75 horsepower engine.
“It will be very radical,” Britten says. “I’m not sure what the final engine size will be, but it will be less than 600cc. I’d like to release it at the Cologne Show in September. This one will be built as a streetbike, to be worked back into a racer.”
Britten worked his racer into a world-class speed machine late last year, with four records claimed by Team Britten. Initial plans were to use a purpose-built machine to shoot for the flying-mile record, but Britten says plans changed hastily.
“This guy, John White, had built a streamliner; I loaned him an engine, and the day before it was supposed to run, he crashed it,” he recalls. “A man from the FIM had come all the way from Europe to verify the records and he was going back in 24 hours.
I felt bad for John, so I let him try it on our V-1000.
The only thing we did to the bike was put a tall top gear in it, and in 24 hours, we made a dustbin fairing.” White established the record, with a 188.092-mph average for two passes. Loren Poole, Britten’s secretary, then had an impromptu go at standing-start records, setting marks for quarter-mile, kilometer and mile. “He’s pretty good with a clutch.” says Britten. “Actually, he has some racing experience. We had everything out there and figured, why not take a shot?” -Robert Hough
