http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/britten.html
Remarkable story. I’m sure some of you know this, but if you don’t check it out. It would make for a fantastic movie script, I reckon. It’s an amazing bike, but the story behind it is even cooler.
Good story. I’ve seen his pic around and pics of the bike. But I never knew the story…now I do. Thanks.
fantastic story and one hell of a guy…
National Geographic or perhaps the Disco channel did a special on him a few years back… It was fantastic, scenes of him sand casting his own crank case cover / frame spars etc. in his tiny home garage and then running across his lawn to the swimming pool to cool of the super hot casts… 
He really just up and built that bike from the ground up, to his own radical and entirely original design, incredible… watching hiim take it to the US and race it was fantastic as well, although the thing having an engine failure in the 2nd last lap whilst leading the race was heartbreaking… the fact the the failure was caused by a NT$20 bought battery terminal or something similar was even worse…
I posted a brief thing about him here: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopi … 698#286698
I had quite a lengthy chat with him one time when I was at an airshow as a A4 engineer. He rode the V1000 against a Hughs 500D over a 1 km drag, turned and back again. It was a bit of a cheesy mismatch, but he still won.
I ended up having a phone conversation with him afterwards because I had contacts in the Airforce to help him out with getting some engine parts Flame-Sprayed with ceramics. He told me he had a project going to make the engine more high tech, and wanted to try out ceramic/plasma coatings.
Sadly, I heard on the news the annoucement he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was well aware he had cancer when I spoke to him, but obviously decided to keep it underwraps until the end was near.
I was given the book a couple of years ago which is a really, really interesting read if you are into engineering. The Britten company had some wonderful opportunities ahead, including developing a re-issue bike for the Indian motorcycle company, along with production of street legal V-1000s. The team John had under him were incredibly talented and patient. Apparently his wife didn’t get on with the key players at the Britten shop, and basically as soon as John died she pulled all support for future projects and all that talent dispersed. :fume:
I watched the TVNZ documentary “One Man’s Dream” back around 93-94 I guess (a couple of years before his death) and John went from being “the man” amongst bikers to becoming a National hero in NZ. The Bike did national tours for years (probably still does) and there is one right in the lobby of the National Museum of NZ in Wellington. People still stare sliently at the thing (including me). These days, it can look a bit cheesy with all the colors etc, but John really was ahead of his time regarding the design. I hope they bring it out on DVD, it’s a really inspirational documentary.
I’d love to see a documentary about this. It’s such an inspirational story, really shows that if you truly believe in yourself, you CAN achieve almost anything.
Great article thanks for the post, I read about him years ago in a motorcycle magazine.
Everything has been said in the above posts.
Here’s to that Kiwi spirit of “Doing it yourself” :bravo: 
[quote=“Bubba 2 Guns”]
Here’s to that Kiwi spirit of “Doing it yourself” :bravo: [/quote]
I do my part :wanker: