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He was the first to ride the Honda Six and his success with the bike made the combination of the two unanimous as an unstoppable force in motorcycle racing. He still holds the world record for the most World Championships for Honda. Without question the single most important motorcycle of any kind to appear on the open market in recent years, this Honda RC164 is offered for sale by multiple World Championship winner Jim Redman, to whom it was given by a grateful factory at the end of the 1964 Grand Prix season. Talk about jumping in at the deep end – going from a single-cylinder four-speed Matchless that revved to 7000rpm to a six-cylinder seven-speed Honda that they warmed up at 13,000rpm!” recalls Graham, who later raced saloon cars, enjoying great success in a Chevrolet Camaro. “It was pretty traumatic. Just riding the six out of the pits was a problem – it really had no flywheel, so it was very easy to stall. The power delivery wasn’t user-friendly – it was all way up at the top end and it came in with a big wallop at 15 or 16 thousand. And the handling was interesting, to put it mildly, because in those days all the emphasis was on the engine; the chassis was just somewhere to put the engine. All in all, it was pretty hairy.” In September 1964, famed Honda engineer Michihiko Aika and rider Jim Redman climbed aboard a BOAC VC10 at Tokyo’s Haneda airport, bound for Monza, via Hong Kong, Calcutta, Karachi and Rome. Sitting next to them was their new motorcycle, laid across three passenger seats and hidden beneath a blanket. The decision to race the bike at the season-ending Italian Grand Prix had been last minute, too late to freight it to Italy.
Yes, except the last two years because I moved down actually in 1964, when Jimmy had to go to school. Marlene stayed at home and I commuted and then in 1966 I crashed and then I did the immigration then, I think and that was only because already there was Mugabe on the radar. He wasn’t in, but he was looking the best bet and Smith been on the train with Wilson and all that stuff you know, and I was not getting my MBE because of it and I was hiding in the corner in South Africa. So yes, I lived in South Africa, I bought into Charlie Young, and I lived in South Africa. In the first segment this week, Senior Editor Nic de Sena chats with Arthur Coldwells about KTM’s latest Super Duke 1290 GT. That’s the sport-touring version of the Super Duke R. The question is whether KTM overly detuned its fierce superbike, or whether even in touring mode, the heart of The Beast is still just as savage. Four days on the train with nothing but water coffee and tea again. I don’t drink much water these days. And when I got there and the sunshine and the place and the people, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. All of a sudden I reversed my wanting to kill the guys that took me out of England. I thought I’d like to send them a thank you letter for sending me here and then they took me to Victoria Falls and I’m looking at this and then from little me in a little garage in Greenford in Middlesex, and here I am, I had better send a case of champagne to those guys and so that was it, that’s how I came to Rhodesia. Jim Redman, 1966In 1967, Mike the Bike secured the Constructors crown for Honda, but though he and Ago were equal on points and had five wins apiece, Ago was crowned champion because he had three second places to Hailwood’s two. Remarkably, these engines, and Honda’s first Formula 1 engine, the RA270, were mostly designed by one man, the brilliant Shoichiro Irimajiri, who was only 24 in 1964. For the 1965 / 1966 season Honda upped its ante. It had developed the ‘Six’ further and wanted two riders on its team for the 250cc class. He then began to race in South Africa, beginning the 1958 season as a Paddy Driver. In April he made his GP debut at Brands Hatch and from then on was a regular amongst the fastest riders and in 1960 he won the 500cc GP of Spain on a Norton. Later Honda hired him. His first victory for the Japanese manufacturer came in the 250cc Belgian Grand Prix in 1961 and the following year he took both the 250cc and 350cc titles. In 1963 he again achieved the double crowns of the 250cc and 350cc classes, with two more 350cc titles in 1964 and 1965. The flowering of engineering adventure was eventually kerbed by regulations in the late 1960s, but not before Honda and rivals had produced some of the most exciting racing machines of all time.
Born in London, England, he emigrated to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1952, where he began his racing career. He met with John Love who was changing from motorcycle racing to single-seat cars. Redman enthusiastically helped Love prepare and maintain his Cooper F3 with a Manx Norton 500cc engine. In recognition for Redman's assistance, Love allowed Redman to ride his Triumph Grand Prix including use of his riding gear for his first racing experiences. [3] He said: “Jim and I are - sadly - the only survivors of the original team in period and we still have wonderful memories.” For the records I was the first to win 3 GPs in a day in 1964, then Mike Hailwood did it in 1967 and that is no one can do it now it because now you can only ride 1 Grand Prix in a day. Bloody health and Safety rubbish again I suppose Times were very tough for any working family in England in the post-war years and it was not uncommon for Britons to look to Rhodesia for new opportunities. When the family was again confronted with potential for fragmentation and even more financial hardship by the possibility of Redman’s conscription into the Army as soon as he reached draft age, he made the decision to go to Rhodesia, make a new start and earn enough money to move the entire family there. Despite his youth and having to start over in a foreign land, Redman made it happen. The grit and inventive thinking it took foreshadowed the qualities Redman would bring to bear in building his racing career that resulted in six world championships and his being decorated Member of the British Empire (MBE).Yes, I’d already sent a letter to my mum to say I’m going to come, but she was actually reading the letter as I walked through the door and that was the start of my run-in with the people above me and then when my dad did what he did – Setting up the cylinder head was an absolutely mammoth job. Valve clearance was only six to eight thou, but the tappets had no screw adjusters. You had to measure them with a micrometer to work out where you were going to put each one, then you’d grind them down on an abrasive stone according to how each valve was opening and closing. The margin for error was very, very small. Legend’ and ‘icon’ are overused words. But the Honda RC165, aka the ‘Six’ is legendary and it is iconic. And at the 2017 Classic TT, along with a string of other classic dates, the original Honda ‘Six’ has made a very special appearance alongside the only two surviving members of the original team to have ridden it: Stuart Graham and Jim Redman. The champion of two courts ignored by the world: Ora Washington fought to make her name in racially segregated America There is no need to be a winner in Japan—first. I want to be the world winner, ” Honda-san had said seven years earlier…
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