Hi I'm Geoff Stray and I'd like to show you my V-twin Panther. Currently the only one in the
world. It's 1300ccs, 1959, and it was originally a Panther M120 650cc single cylinder. And I went
along to our owner's club meeting at the Panther Owners Club, and you know, I said I've taken the
mag off my Panther and it looks like there's a ready-made shelf for a second cylinder. And
everybody went, no people have thought that before but when you take off the timing cover,
you know the oil pump is right where the second camshaft should be so it can't be done. But you
know I like a challenge and I kind of meditated on it for a while and I came up with a solution.
I couldn't use, as it turned, out I couldn't use the shelf that was on the
original crankcase because it's two degrees off the right angle and the aluminium's too thin.
So I had to get another set of cases and saw a hole in the back of these ones, and saw
the mounting parts, the parts of the other crankcase
that the barrel mounts on at the front.
I sawed the whole thing out and got it alloy welded into the hole I've made in these crankcases.
And then I had to, because I had to find another
place to run the oil pump, so I used a BSA A10 oil pump running off the end of the crankshaft.
And then there's nowhere to drive the magneto because all that parts now gone,
so I've got a Yamaha Virago ignition on it. It's about 35 years old.
Then I had to get a frame to fit it into and it wouldn't quite fit into a standard Featherbed
frame. So I got Dresda to make me a max frame that's about an inch and a half higher and three
inches longer than standard. Then the next problem, because the second camshaft overlaps
the first camshaft,
that meant I had to build the whole timing case outwards, and then make the camshaft longer. But
that was getting too difficult, until I found a, the solution was to skim the cam wheels to
half width. And then that meant there'd be too much pressure on the valve gear so I had to get
lightweight valves and springs made especially. Some of the interesting features you might like
to know about. The connecting rods are from a Buell XB9. That's a knife and fork conrods. And
I couldn't use Harley Davidson ones because there's not enough meat on the small ends to
take them out to fit the Jaguar gudgeon pins which are in Rover pistons. It's got a clock
on it which I made from the internals of a kitchen clock inserted into a speedo case,
and I did have a second hand on it but it collided with the glass so I had to take that off. The
The front end is a Fireblade. On the Fireblade the front hub is a CB750, so I had to get a special
spindle made to adapt the CB750 hub to the Fireblade forks. Another problem is that
the triple clamps on here are much less, they're more in line than
on a normal Norton. So as a result I had a special alloy tank made for it and when I put it on
the yolks hit the tank. So I have had to have special modifications to this tank. So eventually
it might have an alloy one specially made in this style. Under this cover here is the ignition
system which is Yamaha Virago. It's about 35 years old. So there's two pick-ups and a magnet, and
you've got the electronic unit under there. But the cover is made out of a Sainsbury's saucepan.
I think even the Triumph factory did that themselves for one of their prototypes.
That is a lawn mower alternator off a Kubota lawn mower. But they also use those in small
aircraft so it should be fairly reliable. Yeah there's a Triumph hub on the back,
and there's a Honda XL250 kickstart. And actually the gearbox and clutch came from
an Ariel Square Four but that might not amuse everybody.
Actually I started out for the first time in August 2020 and it rides like an absolute dream.
It's one of the best handling bikes I've been on. I didn't open it up too much
because of all the new bits inside. It's got new pistons, rings, bores, main bearings etc.
So, well the power is much more than a normal Panther, and it's very hard to ride it slowly.