The First Of Many

Ex-Terry Dennehy 1968 DRIXTON HONDA 500

- Alan Cathcart

Track test at the Basse TT public roads course in Holland of the original Drixton Honda 500 raced by Australian privateer Terry Dennehy in 1969/70 500cc Grand Prix seasons

It’s very unlikely that any other Japanese-engined Classic era road racer has been replicated as frequently around the world as the twin-cylinder Drixton Honda. Created back in 1968 by Aussie Terry Dennehy and his mechanic mate Ralph Hannan to go 500GP racing affordably in the heyday of the Continental Circus, this privateer concoction entailed their tuning up a stretched twin-cylinder CB450 Honda K4 motor, and wrapping it in a frame made in Italy by Swiss man-of-many-parts, Othmar ‘Marly’ Drixl. A rider himself of no mean ability, Marly is best remembered for the small series of Drixton frames which he produced in the late 1960s for Aermacchi and Honda engines, originally under the aegis of the then British Aermacchi importer and former Norton works rider, the late Syd Lawton.

“Marly was one of those people who always made it his business to know what was going on,” recalled Lawton in an interview we made together before he passed away in 1997. “But despite this, and the fact that he always seemed to have some deal or other on the go, he was also just about permanently broke! I first came across him in 1964, not long after I began importing Aermacchis. Marly was working on the production line at their factory, and living with his wife and young child in a van parked up by the nearby lake. He turned out to be the perfect intermediary for me in dealing with the people there, since I didn’t speak Italian and he did, as well as English and practically everything else even though it soon became obvious he was mainly interested in getting me to sponsor him to go racing!”