TEST
Fred Walmsley is best known for the succession of Manx Norton and Matchless G50 classic racers he’s furnished over the past 30-plus years for the likes of Barry Sheene, Wayne Gardner, John McGuinness, and other stars of the past and present, to ride.
Together, they’ve won dozens of Historic races around the world from the UK to Australia and all over Europe, with Walmsley-prepped bikes, all of them prepared in the well-equipped FWD (Fred Walmsley Developments) workshop attached to his farmhouse outside Preston, on the edge of the Lancashire fells. There the 77-year-old painstakingly re-created the bike bearing chassis no. FW02 with which Barry Sheene won what sadly transpired to be his last ever race at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on September 8, 2002 – three days before his 52nd birthday, six months before he passed away on March 10, 2003 at his Queensland home, on Australia’s Gold Coast.
This wasn’t simply a question of restoring the rather ragged-looking two-wheeled artefact that its current owner Simon Roud and a consortium of friends had acquired after the Bonhams Stafford Sale on October 16, 2022 – described in the catalogue as ‘requiring recommissioning’. For as experienced collectors, Roud & Co wanted the motorcycle in their possession to be exactly as last raced by Barry in his final date with the chequered flag – and as the Bonhams catalogue again very correctly pointed out, ‘the engine, front wheel, forks, controls, gearbox and swingarm are not those used by Barry Sheene.’
“We took the view that acquiring the bike in its then state was only the start of the process,” says Simon Roud, 65, a Kent-based specialist military contractor. “So who better to task with the job of bringing the bike back to the condition in which it crossed the finish line at Goodwood in September 2002 than the man who built it and ran it for Barry? Fred’s done a wonderful job in tracking down the missing components, including the engine. So now this is truly a time warp motorcycle both mechanically and visually, even down to minor details like getting new versions of the correct stickers made for the bodywork.”
Barry’s bike backstory…
So what’s the story behind FW02 and its incredible journey – best to ask Fred Walmsley. “I already had Manx Norton FW01,” explains Fred. “But it became apparent that we needed a spare bike for the increasing number of far-away races we were doing. So I built the FW02 in the winter of 1998/99 with a Spondon replica Featherbed frame in Reynolds T45 tubing. We ran it in 1999 very successfully, with Steve Tomes and Glen English riding it. I was also running Bob Heath in the Isle
