Rhodes Norton Manx: The Manx that wouldn't go away
Story: Jim Scaysbrook Photos: Garpfth Rhodes
In Victorian motoring circles, Garpfth Rhodes (yes, that is the correct, Welsh spelling for his Christian name, but everyone calls him Garth, so from here on we’ll do the same) is a legend - a highly respected engineer, former competitor, and hands-on man in various organisational capacities. His tiny workshop in Melbourne is crammed with machine tools and machinery – engines of all sorts, components, gadgets and numerous motorcycles.
One such motorcycle is a 1950 double-knocker Manx Norton, in such original condition that it could have just come out of Bracebridge Street. Very few of these “garden-gate” plunger-framed Manxes survive in their original form because most were either blown up and discarded, had their powerplants plundered for little racing cars, or had the engines and gearboxes transplanted into Featherbed frames to extend their competitive lives. This one suffered the second of the three fates, but remarkably, almost unbelievably, re-formed to live another day in the form in which it was born.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. When just a lad in his early ‘20s, Garth spotted an advertisement in the local paper seeking members for a 500 cc Racing Car Club. He duly fronted at the Windsor Theatre in Chapel Street, Prahran, and met a handful of fellow enthusiasts, including the legendary Bruce Walton, multi-Australian Hill Climb Champion. Garth immediately began work on a 500 cc special, into which he put a standard ES2 Norton engine and gearbox, purchased from a wrecker at Fitzroy for ’50 bob’. Fiat 500 suspension was used front and rear, as well as “bits of round tubing to hold the wheels apart”.
That car was quickly sold, along with a second that Garth had built up, using a Velocette engine. So once again, Garth was car-less, and vehicle number three was laid down. While these plans were hatching, Garth helped Bruce Walton build and maintain his highly-successful JAP-engined hill climber. Around this time, Garth was summoned to a nearby (North Fitzroy) property to help get an old Dodge started, when he spied an interesting looking vehicle parked behind it – a Hartnett. “These were made out of sets of alloy sand castings, bolted together, and this car had some alloy wheels on it which took my eye as being suitable for the 500, so I bought this Hartnett for a fiver – it was complete except for no upholstery or hood.
I towed it back to the workshop, and all the castings went to the local foundry, the engine went to a bloke for his fishing boat, and the wheels and driveshafts finished up in the car that became known as the Hire Weld 500. This was one of our trading names. We’d built up a number of trailer-mounted petrol-driven and diesel-driven welding units which we used to hire out. So I put a BSA B33 engine in it with a lay-down Norton gearbox, and it went quite well, with George Wade cams and higher compression. It was quite wide track because of the width of the Hartnett drive shafts but it handled very nicely, even on the rotten old tyres.
Then I was told about a bloke down near Camberwell, Peter McKenna, who had a bit of Manx Norton stuff and had started to build a car, but had given up and was prepared to sell the Manx stuff.
So one day I went down to his home in Glen Huntley Road near the beach, knocked on the door a few times and this huge red headed man opened it. He absolutely reeked of whisky, and as soon as I was inside out came another glass and a bottle of whisky which he offered me. I was a non-drinker so his girlfriend made me a cup of tea and then I was invited out into the workshop. It was a big block of land with a big shed and there was a type 328 BMW car sitting there – the very car that Frank Pratt had won the 1948 Australian Grand Prix in at Point Cook.
Then I was taken in next door and there was a couple of bits of tubing sitting on blocks of woods, and sitting in between them was a double-knocker Manx engine. A bit further over, there was a complete Garden Gate Manx outfit minus its engine and gearbox, and as well as that there was a solo Manx there, a rolling chassis with the engine sitting on the floor nearby – both 1950 models. I was almost speechless but I told Mr McKenna that I had this 500 car with a BSA motor and I would love to put a Manx Norton engine into it.”
“Well here your are lad,” this bloke roared, “the whole bloody lot or none of it – a hundred and fifty quid the lot or piss off.”
“Well this was a life’s income to me, but I had a little bit of money put aside and I when I got home on the Saturday evening I told my mother about it. She got up, went into her bedroom, and came back and handed me an envelope full of money and told me to go down the next day and buy it.
So I proudly came home the next Saturday with my Land Rover and a trailer full of Manx Norton bits. Out came the BSA engine, I made up some new steel mounting plates and in went the double-knocker Manx engine. I didn’t even look inside it, I was so keen to hear it run. It had an Amal RN (Remote Needle) carburettor.
Bruce Walton came around and we took it out into Brunswick Street, ready to give it a push, when another mate of mine, Laurie, a policeman walked up. He was pretty interested in it too, so he held up the traffic so we could start it – can you imagine that happening nowadays? It fired up straight away, and I ran it like that for a couple of meetings, then I got a cabin blower and fitted it on. It turned out the engine was on about 9:1 compression, and it was just incredible the improvement in performance – I used methanol with some 130 octane fuel added and about 10% tyuol.”
The balance of the Norton stuff, including both rolling chassis, tanks and so on, were sold to John Burrows, champion scrambles rider who had a shop in East Malvern.
Around 1959, a genuine Mk 9 Cooper with a normally-aspirated 500 Manx engine and bits and pieces of another engine came onto the market. The car that had been raced very successfully by Murray Rainey, and Garth had to have it. The engines were 1953 models, the last of the long-strokers. Garth didn’t need two 500 cc racing cars, so he took the Norton out of the Hire Weld Special and stored it in his laundry, re-fitted the BSA and sold the car. It found an owner quite quickly, who ran it a few times without success, and then disappeared.
“I used to buy the odd motorcycle at auction, make a fiver here and there, and around 1970 I went to an auction in Preston where the owners of a motorcycle shop had retired and bought a Triton with an alloy Tiger 100 engine. It was nice and clean and I had it sitting in the front of my workshop in Victoria Street Richmond, I didn’t intend to keep it, and one Saturday afternoon there was a tap on the window and a young bloke said, “G’day mate, would the Triton be for sale?” We pushed it into the side street and fired it up and he was keen to buy it. He asked if he could leave a deposit and come back with the balance during the week. Then he spotted the early Square Four Ariel I had sitting in the workshop and said “Are you interested in the oldies?” to which I said yes. He explained that his father had been killed a few years before and had a whole lot of old bikes and bits which were in a shed at his mother’s place at Kew, and asked if I would be interested in having a look, and come to some sort of deal before it got chucked on the tip. Naturally I was interested, and during conversation I realised I knew his father, Bill Dobson (Senior), who had been knocked off his Vincent and killed.
So we went out to Kew and in this shed was a whole lot of Scott stuff and a GTP Velocette, and when I lifted a few old bags away there was a Garden Gate Norton frame, which I recognised as a Manx straight away because the rear heel units slope forward slightly. “I said, are there any more bits of that lying about Bill?” and he said, “Oh yeah, in the spare bedroom there is a big old wardrobe full of bits.”
Well, inside the wardrobe were the tanks, wheels, the saddle, pretty much the whole thing less the motor. We made a deal on it, and loaded everything into Bill’s Valiant utility there and then and took it back to my place in Richmond. He took the Triton and came back as agreed a few weeks after and paid me the balance. So I had all this stuff sitting in the workshop for a while and eventually I thought I’d scratch a bit of paint off the frame and see what the number was. I wrote that down and a while later I dragged the old Manx engine out of the laundry and checked the engine number – guess what, they matched! I can only guess that Bill Dobson Senior had bought the Manx rolling chassis at some stage from John Burrows.”
And so, almost two decades on, the Norton came back together after an extensive and comprehensive rebuild and it appeared in Garth’s hands at the Winton All Historic meeting in 1978. Garth rode the bike at quite a few race meetings and hill climbs when historic racing was in its infancy. Today, the Manx is a rare example of a totally original DOHC Garden Gate Manx, right down to the 20-inch front and rear. This is one Manx that refused to die.
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