Malcolm Newell in 'The Slug' GPZ1100
This is the Sports Quasar (better known as 'The Slug'). That is its creator, Malcolm Newell, sitting in this amazing Kawasaki GPZ1100-powered creation on the track leading to his home and workshop, Field Cottage, near Calne, Wiltshire, in the early 1980s. The Slug's first owner was Glyn Sparkes who rode it around East Anglia for quite a while in the late 1980s. It currently belongs to Tudor Thomas and is alive and well and living near Wisbech. Tudor has ridden it to several FF gatherings including, memorably, the Malcolm Newell Memorial run of 2000. There was at least one other Slug built with a Z13 six cylinder engine but it was never completed and was last put on public display in a sorry state at Chris Baker's during the MMM 2000 run - see the pic of it in the MMK2 section. PNB Jan 05
2013 update. Tudor revived the Slug in order to take it to the 2009 TT races on the Isle of Man and subsequently painted it bright yellow when he got involved with the Angelic Bulldog Land Speed Record project. (see the other photos in this folder).
This thirty year old rear-engined machine still looks a lot more sensible and practical than the rear-K100-engined Exodus built in prototype form by US company Suprine in 2013. PNB.
Photo: Paul Blezard archive.
Compare and contrast with the
Compare and contrast with the Suprine Exodus built 30 years later, in much less practical form!