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cooled by the very visible radiator on the front;
and of course I know who owned and rode it,
but that’s where my knowledge of the machine
would come to an end.
Always the one to get to the nitty-gritty on
a subject, [Ed: commonly known as being
nosey] and the background of such a machine,
I enquired if Mark would be up for doing a
detailed photoshoot of the scooter which would
be combined with an in-depth discussion with
the inventor, innovator, builder and rider, Mr
Norrie Kerr.
They both were (luckily for me) up for this, so
a warmer time of year was waited upon to get
some great outdoor shots at a nice location.
Whereas the pictures speak for themselves and
show just how well this scooter still looks after
all this time, they also act as an indicator to
what could possibly be going on with it; but the
story behind this real box of tricks was only fully
opened up after speaking with its creator.THE INSPIRATION
After racing for a while with the usual approach
of going for balls-out speed and maximum
power, therefore attacking the race with the
mind-set of ‘finish first or blow it up trying’,
Norrie started to think differently. Yes, of
course it had to be fast, but this had to be
balanced with reliability; there was no point in
leading a race well out in front, only to have a
part fail due to excessive tuning in an attemptto squeeze every last drop of horsepower out
of the motor.
Norrie had been seeing the water-cooled
motorcycles at the race meetings and practice
sessions and started to think out of the box
(or out of the cylinder to be precise). If he
could build a water-cooled head and control
the temperature to within a pre-set safe range,
he’d have a fast and reliable racing machine.
This combined with the lightness and agility of
the SS, along with Norrie’s almost tailor-made
size for such a small machine, would be the
perfect winning combination.
When Norrie first mentioned this statement
of intent to his then fellow team-mate and
business partner, Dave Webster, Norrie said
‘Webbo’ thought he was out of his mind,
(although eventually Dave became a convert,
himself building ‘The Cooler’, a water-cooled
Lambretta racer). Norrie convinced him that
they needed to start thinking like the ‘Terrible
Taffs,’ the formidable Team Taffspeed headed-
up by the late great Terry and Ian Frankland.
Norrie says the Taffs were serious
competitors in business and as a race team,
but were also very good friends. Norrie
acknowledges the vast amount of work and
development that the brothers did to advance
the sport in leaps and bounds. Norrie took
inspiration from the Franklands and wanted to
produce something right and way ahead of its
time.THE MACHINE IN DETAIL
The mantra of ‘greater reliability’ was the
impetus behind the build.
Norrie used a standard Vespa Super Sprint as
the base model to convert into a racer. I asked
why he’d gone that way? He said that it was
already a sporty design with the narrow headset
and legshields and (get this) because he had
plenty of them lying around!
Norrie explained that around that time he had
at least seven Super Sport Vespas stripped-
down and another six or so “just lying around”- you know, as you do??!!
Norrie explained that these were different
times; the massive movement for older and/or
original machines just didn’t exist. If the well-
heeled retro scooter fashionista forcing the
prices ever skyward had been in existence at
that time, the story would no doubt have been
very different.
THE POWER PLANT
The top end was a Spanish Autisa cylinder,
made from aluminium with a cast iron liner;
the head, being a water-cooled item was
sent away to be specialist welded to Norrie’s
specification. The crank was a PK long taper
type that had been fully welded up to gain the
maximum benefit out of the gasses forced into
the combustion chamber via the rotary valve
induction. The stroke was 51mm with the bore
55 giving 122.6cc.