Tuesday 29 March 2011

BARN JOB

Clem Johnson's beautiful Barn Job Vincent, built in 1960. 1600cc in a home made alloy frame and forks. He ran a best of 9.82 with it @ an amazing 151mph.






In 1980 it was still racing in a much altered form and using a blower, no ET shown but 185mph terminal was plenty fast in an open face lid and jockey goggles.


Thanks to Guy at GKM for the original article taken from Hot Rod magazine 1964.

I am told that one of the bikes on this little film is Barn Job, cant really identify it but good nostalgic footage anyway. Shame there is no sound.

5 comments:

Blue said...

Good article on Barn Job in Baggers magazine of all places about 3 years ago.

kevinhog@aol.com said...

I saw that thing run many times at OCIR. He ran it on a 18" roadrace slick and it smoked all the way down the track. It was in the 7's by then which was just an amazing feat. Asking Clem why he didn't step up to a wrinkle wall he said, "cuz I would scatter this thing to kingdom come if it ever hooked up!" To see it close up and the billet aluminum that basically made up the whole thing was very impressive. He could make pass after pass on pop and I never seen the head off it in the pits, he forgot more than I will ever know.

Robbie said...

amazing machine

Pete Stansfield said...

Blue, I think the Baggers article was just a reprint of this one, the one that comes up online is anyway.
Kev, Good memories, but 7s ? The way the short bike was set up with much wheelspin made for huge top speeds but poor ETs. Jim Leineweber rode the bike in the 70s and finally got it up to 185mph at the lights.

Guy@GK said...

Brass balls!