Arthur Middleton rode his VF500FF to the 2009 Isle of Man TT. This Blez pic of the beast on Douglas Seafront appears in the February 2010 issue of The Rider's Digest (www.theridersdigest.co.uk). The finish on this home-built machine is as good as it looks in the pic.

Tudor Thomas rode the GPZ1100 Slug to the Isle of Man for the annual TT week in June 2009. It was quite an eventful trip....not least on the motorway getting there. This Blez pic of the beast on Douglas seafront appears in the February 2010 edition of The Rider's Digest magazine. www.theridersdigest.co.uk (The blue Yamaha Ténéré behind is the bike Blez rode to the island and back).

This was the first time I saw a Quasar, 1980 when I was 14. I think the event was at the Police HQ in Preston and even had a Police version. The last pic is a group from the show.

Blez sitting in the repaired Quasar In the south of France after the horrendous crash on the autoroute near Carcassonne in which I hit a Renault 5 which had been carelessly parked on its roof, in the fast lane, at night! Doesn't look too bad, considering, does it? My passenger, the unfortunate Ludmila, was still in hospital at this point, while I was very lucky to get away with a few bruises...(Fortunately she made a good recovery and later became an adventurous motorcyclist in her own right.)

This is Dave Lochead's remarkable Quasar replica, finished in New Zealand in 2009
Dave explains:
"Built from a Kawasaki GPz550 UniTrak, and using the donor bike's monoshock system.
Forks are fabricated leading link currently set up for a slight dive under braking
It's probably putting out 55 -58 horsepower, and by my calculations weight is under 200 kilos, it's certainly deceivingly light, and has good power/weight ratio.

Pictures and information, plus a great video, on the latest LSR record breaker

Both these historic machines featured in the Top Gear FF feature in 1988, but not together. The Quasar was filmed here at its home, the National Motorcycle Museum with William Woollard sitting in it, while the Ecomobile was the one I was filmed driving in and around its birthplace in Winterthur, Switzerland.

This series of three photos shows an Ecomobile being driven through the Daimler sidewind test facility in Untertürkheim at 80km/h (50mph) circa 1991. A similar sequence of photos with a standard BMW K100 shows it leaning less but deviating more from its path. Arnold Wagner sent me the photos in response to my ruminations about Craig Vetter's comment that 'streamlined is round at the front and pointed at the rear'. Arnold commented: "Round at the front has nothing to do with head or feet first. It’s a necessity to get decent crosswind behaviour.

Nose is novel, in terms of Voyager-style shape development, in enclosing the front wheel. This is built to TTXGP FF rules, i.e. not more than 50mm in front of wheel. Intake slot fits well with Yamaha airflow over the small front wheel into the radiator mounted low behind the wheel. If this works well a similar nose, minus the intake slot, may be fitted to FJ.

Cmax foam shape now ready for covering. The body tent is too small to get full body in one shot. This is the site of the 'old factory' where 001 and 002 were built.

Next stage is to cover the surface in a thin, sealing layer of micro-balloon/resin 'filler' ('glascell 10 in Sicomin epoxy resin - AKA 'Aero-Mick') to protect this fragile shape and provide a hard surface to lay up glass cloth, so that excess resin can be squeegeed off. Surface will be finished with more aero-mick, then prepared for painting.

This bunch of Bonneville record-breakers were amongst several more displayed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2007 in a superb representation of the famous salt flats, complete with support vehicles. Photo by Blez

Martin took V02 on a Valkyrie Riders run to North Wales the day after he bought it! Clearly it runs okay.

Craig Vetter and Paul Blezard with the original Triumph Bonneville streamliner which hit 214mph way back in 1956.

This was the third time I'd ridden Cedric's FF, but the first time out in the countryside on a nice scenic corner.
Great fun, but the idiosyncratic steering takes some getting used to! PNB Photo of Paul Blezard by Paul Compton.

Cedric leans into a left hander. {Photo: Blez)

Following Cedric in his streamliner was an entertaining experience, especially when he had to stop at a junction and put his bare feet down! Photo by Blez on board his Tmax, August 2009

Paul Blez (in white MonoTracer shirt) extols the virtues of Yamaha's Mk3 Tmax to Craig Vetter, Cedric Lynch and Arvind Rabadia. Luton, Aug 09.