My Dream Come True!

Here it is, finished… Allen’s RC374 six-cylinder racer-replica

My RC374 was basically finished and assembled in bare metal. I had run the engine several times and it was running really well.

I had rolled down the drive a few times and it felt great. It’s such a small and compact bike, I found myself wondering how Mike Hailwood rode his RC174 around the Isle of Man TT circuit at speeds of up to 150mph in 1967. Standing back and looking at the bike, I thought it would be nice to leave the fairing in its raw aluminium finish complete with hammer marks, rather than painting it silver, but wondered what to do about the yellow stripe and blue race ovals. I didn’t really want to paint them on, so I decided to make them myself from self-adhesive vinyl shrink-wrap, which is normally used to wrap cars. This proved to be perfect for the job.

I first traced out the outline of the stripe in pencil directly on to the fairing using my reference book photos as a guide, and then I used some black pin-stripe tape to mark out the final shape. The outline was then traced on to a sheet of paper and cut out. I used this paper shape to mark out two mirror image shapes on the vinyl wrap and cut them out with scissors. The vinyl cut-outs were then applied to the fairing, one each side. The blue ovals were drawn directly on to the vinyl and cut out, before being positioned on the fairing. The next thing to do was to take the bike apart and get the frame, tank, seat cowl and mudguards painted, and the bright parts zinc-plated. I had used stainless steel nuts and bolts wherever I could, but a few items like wheel spindles springs, brackets and clips would need to be plated.