British

Hossack Motorcycles

Produced by Norman Hossack from 1984 to 1988.

Hossack was involved with chassis development and then went on to design a new form of frame. This had an innovative front fork which resembled a girder fork, but was actually a twin-wishbone system, similar to that of automobile front suspension. He collaborated on this with Claude Fior.

The design worked well and several machines were built, fitted with a variety of engines. Firstly they were Honda, Rotax and Yamaha, then later came a front-fork conversion for a K100 which was shown to BMW in Munich.

The Hossack system was fitted to Britten, Honda and BMW. BMW named their version "duolever", as fitted to the K1200S, K1200R, K1300R, K1300S, K1200GT, K1300GT and K1600.

The Hossack fork was marketed in Germany by the Wüdo firm for the BMW K100RS from 1990 on.

Hossack's history includes a stint touring Europe as a race mechanic with IOM TT winner Gordon Keith, and three years with McLaren during which they won the F1 championship and the Indy 500. He partook in three Le Mans events, twice as team manager.

Sources: Graces Guide; de.wikipedia.org

See also hossack-design.com

Video explains the front suspension. Interesting gear selection in final frame (and those gearboxes don't usually clunk).

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