THIS MONTH... in 2024
Allen Millyard’s big reveal at the MCN London Motorcycle Show will be well worth seeing – a stunning Honda RC174 six recreation
The MCN London Motorcycle Show, to be held at ExCel on February 16-18, always makes a great day out. And this year, there’s something special for fans of classic bikes – and jaw-dropping engineering. Serial special-builder Allen Millyard will be at the show, unravelling the amazing story of the six-cylinder Honda RC174 replica he built in 2017.
Having built this amazing machine in his shed at home, Allen says: “I always loved the look and sound of Honda’s racing sixes – but who could ever afford one? The original is unique – and though George Beale’s replicas are superb, they’re also out of most people’s reach. But I went to a classic event at Castle Combe circuit and got chatting to Guy Martin about the bikes. He said: ‘Why not build one?’ All the way home, I was thinking about how I could do it.”
At the Henry Cole ‘Ready to Ride Workshop’ stage, you can find out just how Allen made his Honda six dream a reality. From hack-sawing through two Yamaha FZR250RR crankcases, barrels and cylinder heads, machining and assembling a 120° roller-bearing six-cylinder crankshaft from scratch, fabricating a six-pipe exhaust system to hand-forming the aluminium fairing, Allen will reveal all.
“Where possible, I like to use old-school techniques and equipment to build a bike,” he says. “You really don’t need tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of tools and equipment to build a special machine. I used a Japanese model-maker’s guide book as a reference for the build, scaling up a side-on photograph of the original RC174 six to get all the critical dimensions spot-on, for example. And the only job I had to outsource was bending the T45 tubing for the frame. I fabricated the
