1000cc Douglas

[parottia]

I have some blueprints for a 1000cc Douglas, dated 1946, mainly engine and gearbox.  Also a forks arrangement, and a drawing for a DV 60 engine.  All are from the Kingswood works, and have a letter/numeric code.  As a Triumph/AJS man it is all a little outside my normal area of interest, and since I was given these some 25 years ago, it is only recently that I have realised that 1000cc is not a cc normally associated with Douglas.  Can anyone help?

[Doug]

Gavin,

I for one would be very interested to see these, as I collect Douglas drawings and engineering data.  I have not heard before of a 1000cc Douglas motorcycle engine circa 1946.  They did work on some opposed twins about that time as pony engines to start large piston aircraft engines, but these would not have had gearboxes.  One was an air-cooled twin AS1 and the other a water cooled copy RS1.  Also there was a odd four cylinder twin crankshaft thing that got as far as a patent drawing circa 1944.  Cyril Pullin used detailed aspects of this engine when he started developing Autogyros after the war.  

There were 'two' iterations of the DV60 as I understand it.  One during the war based on a old WW1 rear sprung frame.  Then the design was dusted off circa 1948 for a ministry of Supply contract and a purpose built rigid rear frame made for three prototype.  There were perhaps eight or so engines.  The front forks on these used the then current post war Douglas Radiadraulic leading link fork.  All three DV60s survived in one fashion or another, and a replica or two have been built from the spare engines.  The DV60 were 602cc.  

-Doug

[Doug]

I have tried contacting Gavin several times off-forum to follow up on this post. Last I had an email he was going to be abroad for a few months and I have not been able to raise a responce since. I can only hope he or someone that knows him checks back at the forum sometime and sees this post.

-Doug

[Speedway Researcher]

Something niggling in the back of my memory about 1000cc Douglas engine for Dirt Track use somepace obscure from the late 1920s / early 1930s. Possibly mentioned in contemporary mags - Motorcycling - Motor Cyclist - The Auto (which carries a speedway section) 1928 - 1931.

Sorry can't be more precise.

Speedway Researcher

[MichielH]

Something niggling in the back of my memory about 1000cc Douglas engine for Dirt Track.....Sorry can't be more precise.
Speedway Researcher

They surely made a 1000cc around 1910-1920. These engines were used by the Williamson company and were basically a larger version of the Douglas.

Michiel

[roy]

In Jeff Clews book The Douglas Motorcycle,`The Best Twin`there is mention of a 1,000cc model known as `Powerplus`to be produced in the 1933 programme, but no further mention is made about the project.
Roy.