About

Peter Williams was born 27th August 1939 in Nottingham England. He is a former motorcycle road racer who enjoyed success when competing at many levels on home short-circuits, International and Grand Prix races. He raced many times on the Isle of Man TT course from 1966 to 1974. His father was Jack Williams who ran the Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) race department at first with the AJS-7R3 and AJS-E95 ‘Porcupine’ and then AJS-7R and Matchles-G50. Peter trained in mechanical engineering and introduced via racing an innovation which is commonplace on today’s road bikes, alloy wheels, and was an early pioneer of disc brakes. He raced in the era of Giacomo Agostini, Barry Sheene, Mick Grant, Percy Tait, Tony Jefferies, Paul Smart, Dave Potter and John Cooper.

Williams started his racing on UK short-circuits in 1964 and won the 250 cc class of the 1964 Thruxton 500 race on an AJS model 14 CSR partnered by his friend Tony Wood.

He first entered the Isle of Man Manx Grand Prix in 1964 on a 350cc Manx Norton. In 1965 he entered the Senior race on his Dunstall Norton Dominator 500cc twin suffering con-rod breakage of the left cylinder when lying 3rd but scored a third place in the Lightweight 250cc category riding an Orpin Greeves Silverstone.

Williams entered his first Grand Prix race in the 1966 Italian GP finishing 2^nd in the 500cc class and fifth in the 125cc class. He also regularly competed in TT races from 1966, scoring one 1st place and seven 2nd places. He won the 1966 and 1970 North West 200 500cc race in Northern Ireland on an Arter Matchless Special, and placed 2nd in the 1966 250cc class on a Greeves Silverstone water-cooled Orpin Special.  

In 1967 he finished in fourth place in the 500cc world championship on an Arter Matchless Special motorcycle.

He had a long-standing relationship with sponsor Tom Arter riding his Arter-AJS (350cc) and Arter-Matchless (500cc) machines which were developed with special lightweight frames, disc brakes and six-spoke, solid-cast (non wire-spoked) Elektron magnesium alloy wheels, variously dubbed ‘cart wheels’, ‘wagon wheels’ and ‘artillery wheels’ by the UK press.

In 1967 Williams and Arter started a new project with a prototype Weslake twin cylinder 500cc engine but the engine suffered teething troubles for which there was too little finance available to cure.

As a Norton employee from 1969, Williams entered larger-capacity races on Norton Commando twins. He teamed with Charley Sanby to win the 1969 Thruxton 500 endurance race and was placed second in the 750 cc class Production TT race in 1970. From November 1971 to 1974 he was a member of the John Player Norton Team based at Thruxton in Hampshire.

Williams won his only world championship race in 1971 in the 350cc Ulster Grand Prix, and also won the 1973 Isle of Man F750 TT on a John Player Norton Special with a semi-monocoque frame in the twin roles of team designer and rider. The machine was designed as an integrated package with a fairing incorporating handlebar blisters which helped to reduce the drag area (drag coefficient x frontal area) to 0.222 square metres. His racing career was cut short by injuries received in an accident at Oulton Park on August Bank Holiday 1974.

In the 1970s, Williams presented the intelligent face of bikers at public appearances giving open lectures at universities. He provided insight into the engineering issues of racing the restricted budget ‘works’ Norton against multi-cylinder bikes from Japan, highlighting the pros and cons of using the 1940s designed Norton engine. The crank shaft of the 360 degree parallel twin was supported on only two main bearings and as more power was developed from the engine a noticeable flex could be measured using a dial gauge placed on the end of the shaft.

In the later 1970s Williams operated a Kawasaki motorcycle dealership in Southampton

More recently he has been involved in the development of a carbon-fibre monocoque designed superbike and an electric powered racing bike, the EV-0 RR, planned for an outing at the TTXGP Zero Emissions race at the Isle of Man TT in June 2009. He has a number of patents relating to frame and engine design.

For 2013, Williams established a new business Peter Williams Motorcycles to recreate a limited number of his 1973 Norton Monocoque race bikes from which to eventually finance the carbon fibre Monocoque.