1928 Douglas 500cc RA/DT Racing Special

Registration no. BF 8703 Frame no. FF 23 Engine no. EK 105

• Rare overhead-valve sports model
• Originally used for speedway racing
• Entirely restored (good-condition engine excepted)

Douglas had built racing and experimental overhead-valve motorcycles prior to WWI but the first production OHV models did not emerge until after the war's end. In September 1921 at Brooklands an overhead-valve Douglas set new 350cc records at 200, 300 and 400 miles. The first production models appeared at that year's Motor Cycle Show and soon demonstrated an enviable combination of speed and reliability. Sales were boosted considerably when in March 1922 Cyril Pullin became the first man to exceed 100mph on a '500' riding one of the new OHV Douglas models. Having made a successful start, Douglas improved upon the concept with the successor RA model, which took its name from the British Research Association, designers of the novel disc brakes fitted front and rear. Riding an RA, Manxman Tommy Sheard won the 1923 Isle of Man Senior TT while Jim Whalley won that year's French Grand Prix and Spanish 12 Hours race. Capitalising on the RA's success, Douglas marketed it as the 'IOM Model', claiming that it was identical with the TT winning machine.

The RA also played a part in the development of the famous Dirt-Track Douglas. Douglas was the first manufacturer to establish dominance in the sport of speedway, which had been introduced into the UK from Australia in the late 1920s. According to the late Jeff Clew (writing in his book, The Douglas Motorcycle): "One of the first riders to demonstrate the art of 'broadsiding' in the UK was Stewie St George, a New Zealander who entered the Greenford Track's meeting on Easter Saturday 1928. He put up a superb display with his modified RA model...

"News of Stewie's performance reached the Douglas works and he was invited to Bristol for the day by John Douglas, to discuss the possibility of developing a machine specifically for dirt-track racing." The result was the Dirt-Track Douglas: basically an RA with its rear section replaced with that of an OB model. On his first outing at Manchester, St George won every race on the new machine.

We are advised by the private vendor that this RA was originally used for speedway racing before being modified for road use with mudguards and road tyres. The vendor advises us that with the exception of the engine, which was in good condition, the entire machine has been restored. Accompanying documentation consists of a Douglas Club dating letter and a V5C Registration Certificate.