Above:Sturdyclampsstoptheforksfromtwisting.78 |AUTUMN 2019
and worked for all of therecognisednamesthat
grace these pages. Quietlyworkingaway in asmall
workshop,Curtiswasmaking aname for himself as
aframe maker and doing alrightthankyou. Oncethe
Japaneseindustry got thedropofsorting the tubes
that keepthe engine,wheelsand forksinplace,there
wasarguably no need foraspecialist frame-maker,an
over simplisticstatementIadmit, butat theend of
the Seventiesitwas possibly to ‘r ace from the crate’
perhapschangingthe handlebars, controls orfootrests
to personalisethings,but nothingdrastic.
As ever though,thereare peopleforwhom‘stock’
isn’tenough, or theywant to be different or prove
apoint. Suchamachine wasYamaha’s Bengt Aberg,
Torsten Halleman’sinspired XT-basedmachine.Once
the Yamaha factorypulled theplug on the project, the
old Norton factoryatShenstone gotahold of theidea
and producedabatchofmachines.Thechassiswas
inspiredbythe Aberg/Halleman machine and built
by Bria nCurtis forNorton. Once theproject wasover
therewas talk of this newfour-stroke interest in MX
and an ideawas formed tobuildsuchamachine using
Honda’sfive-speed ohcXRmotor.
As befits Brian’sstandardsthiswas notacobbled
togetherthing butawork of tube-bending art. One
deciding factorforthe XR projectwas theavailability
of frame tube fromtheHLbuild. Briantoldusthe
earlyframeswere mig weldedandpainted aschrome
platingdidn’t look niceonthe welding, butlater
frameswere brazed andthis didmeet theexacting
stan dardsofthe builder.Atthe time–the veryearly
Eighties–the HaynesFourstroke serieswas underway
and wassomewheretorace the creations.
TheMotorCycle ofMarch 1980 carriedanewsreport
showingthe newmachineand layingthe credit for
it with Brian, RobTaylor and Eric Cheney, but Brian
wonders howEric’snamehad been linkedtoit. RobLeft:Thephrase‘fully
rebuiltengine’covers a
lotofterritoryonsuch
amachine.Insetleft:Afilter on
thebreatherstopsoil
mistventingintothe
atmosphere.Below:When
photographedthese
YSSunitswereinplace,
complimentingthe
Marzocchifrontforks,
butbothendsarenow
original,withÖhlins at
therear.