Brian Edward Jones | |
|---|---|
| Born | 31 August 1928 |
| Died | 4 March 2001 (aged 72) Coventry |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Motorcycle designer |
| Spouse(s) | Connie, Mabel |
| Children | Katherine, Rachel, Meg |
Brian Jones was a motorcycle designer and engineer born in Gloucester, United Kingdom in 1928. Notable for his contribution to the original design of the Triumph Bonneville, he died in Coventry, on 4 March 2001.[1]
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Kingston Stories: Motorsport Engineer Paul Brandon explains Kingston University's electric motorbike
Transcription
[In the background are the sounds of a bike race, the announcer introduces the bike rider] We’re developing a high performance electric vehicle, it will have a top speed of 150 miles an hour, it will accelerate from nought to 60 in three seconds so it will have the performance of a super bike that you would buy out of a showroom. This is just what I call the fun bit of my work, this interests me and I see a huge benefit to the students. I’m not necessarily after students that are good at particular tasks in terms of engineering or academic tasks, I want students that are dedicated and will commit to a project and actually deliver. [Paul and his student discuss some technical issues about the bike] We are being asked by major car OEM manufacturers to get our feedback from what we’re doing because that’s the sort of system they want to use in their vehicle that’s going to be a production vehicle in two years time. The race the bike takes part in is the Isle of Man TT, it’s called the TT Zero. Kingston University is one of four universities that are currently competing in this event, there’s Brunel and Imperial in the UK and there’s MIT in America. Last year we won the fastest university by some comfortable margin but it’s not just a university competition, we have to take on the likes of the major motorcycle manufacturers. [Paul instructs his student on how to continue with construction of the bike] This is the latest technologies that are being developed for new, clean, low emission vehicles and the students get to understand the latest research that is going on in that area. So that gives us about two months to get the bike built up with the battery and motor integrated so that we can go testing because we’ve got the race in the first week of June... The students involved in the electric bike project have a real advantage over other students because they’ve got experience that they can take directly to a job, some of them were headhunted by companies in America to work on electrical vehicle developments because of their exposure, they’re at the track, people see them, they know what they do and that is a huge tool for them to, to get leverage into a company. This year the chances of winning the race are very high, we’ve got a bike now that’s 10% more capable than last year. We’ll take on anybody that turns up, last year we came third, this year our aim is to be at least second if not first.
Career
Brian Jones was born in Gloucester and began his career in the motorcycle industry with an apprenticeship with Douglas Motorcycles in 1951 before moving to the English Midlands to work with the BSA company who were the biggest motorcycle manufacturers in the world at the time. He also worked at the Norton Motorcycles factory where he decided to become a motorcycle designer. Norton's Managing Director at the time was legendary designer Bert Hopwood and the company was controlled by Associated Motor Cycles.[1]
Leaving a struggling AMC/Norton, Jones moved to Triumph where he worked with Doug Hele[citation needed] on the 650 cc Triumph Bonneville T120. Watching the Thruxton 500 endurance race for production motorcycles he saw the factory rider Percy Tait come into the pits after an hour on the track and plunge his blistered hands into a bucket of water. Jones worked with Hele on improvements to the chassis which resulted in a victory in the 750 cc Production Class at the 1969 Isle of Man TT.[1]
In 1975 , the Triumph factory, with a government loan, was taken over by the workers after the new owners, NVT, had wanted to close it down. Jones had by then left to work for Lockheed. The then-chairman of the workers' co-operative, Dennis Crowder-Johnson asked him to return to Triumph, however, and Jones came back to help improve their only product, Triumph's 750 cc motorcycle, consisting of the Triumph Bonneville T140V and Triumph Tiger TR7V models. As Director of Engineering, he ensured the Bonneville's continued export to the vital USA market by making it compliant with ever-stricter emissions laws (the T140E), (finally) introduced electric starting (the T140ES) and, with Bernard Hooper's design, developed an anti-vibration framed model (T140AV).[2]
Jones also developed variants such as the economy 650 cc Triumph TR65 Thunderbird, the dual-purpose Triumph Tiger Trail (TR7T,) the eight-valve Triumph T140W TSS with Weslake and with Triumph Motorcycle America's Wayne Moulton, the Triumph T140 TSX. Jones was also involved in the development of the prototype 900 cc water-cooled, double-overhead-cam (DOHC) 'Diana' twin that the struggling co-operative hoped would attract outside investment in a last-ditch attempt to save their business. However, by 1983 the co-operative closed and Triumph was then bought by John Bloor with full motorcycle production of a new range only restarting in 1991 at Hinckley.[2]
In the meantime, Les Harris of Newton Abbot was licensed by Bloor to build the Bonneville at his works in Devon and recruited Brian Jones to oversee the new operation. Production was limited by the inability to export to the USA due to prohibitive product liability insurance rates. As well as the Bonneville production, Jones designed a 500 cc Rotax-engined Matchless single-cylinder model that did well in the UK but was never exported in volume. Bonneville production at Newton Abbot ended in 1988 and although the Matchless was successful Jones did not want to work in Harris's spares business and moved to a new incarnation of the Norton company at Shenstone, Staffordshire.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d Reynolds, Jim (10 May 2001). "Brian Jones". The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 February 2011. Retrieved 28 February 2009.
- ^ a b Rosamond, John (2009),Save The Triumph Bonneville ! The Inside Story Of The Meriden Workers' Co-Op, Veloce Publishing
External links
This page was last edited on 2 October 2022, at 05:33