My moto martin missile

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Paul’s Moto Martin in both of its incarnations: with a Z1000 engine (main pic) and a GPz1100 motor (inset)

I READ YOUR Moto Martin article in the current issue I eventually sold it and put together a 180 Jota engine in of CB (February) with interest – it sparked some great a Todd frame – it was way better than the Mirage, but still memories. I was lucky enough to own aMoto Martin-framed ponderous compared to the Moto Martin.

Z1000 in the early 1980s and have included a couple of Years later I bought a Harris Magnum 2 project with a pictures of my old bike (above). I sold a Laverda Mirage to CB900F2 engine, but somehow it never impressed me like buy it – and the difference was unbelievable. The Moto the Moto Martin had. Perhaps the years have curbed my Martin was so light, responsive, and easy to ride, it made riding enthusiasm and magnified the past experiences. the Laverda seem positively agricultural. I would highly recommend trying a Moto Martin; I’m

After a year or so, I removed the engine and swapped it glad to see Georges is making them again. I’m sure a modern for a GPZ1100 B2 with a set of carbs from Ray Debben. sports bike would out-handle one of them, but they have The bike became viciously fast and a little unstable, to the character in a way a modern bike just seems to miss. point that friends did not enjoy borrowing it.

Return of the Turbo Visor

There is a back story to the Turbo Visor that might intrigue you. In the late ’70s, I lived in Datchet, Berkshire. At the other end of the village lived an eccentric TV engineer who drove around in a Rolls-Royce Phantom estate with a telly facing out of a window.

Captain Maurice WE Seddon (Royal Signals, ret’d) was the inventor of the Turbo Visor and one of the strangest people I ever met. His house was a smaller version of the Addams family mansion, he kept about 20 dogs and rode a BSA with a huge Bosch alternator, belt-fed by a crank extension. This was to power the stove in one of the panniers, where he kept a pot of soup on the go, to keep him warm while using a soldering iron to fix the miles of electric blanket wire he used to heat various items of clothing he had created. His house was cold, as he didn’t feel the need to heat it while wearing one of his electrically-heated dressing gowns. Maurice was proudly half German (still awkward in those days) and was once a guest on the Michael Parkinson show (I underpinned Parkys house too.) Hope this adds a little colour to your recent correspondence.