Author Topic: New Vintage Project, 250cc M-VG, Reconstruction of a 1933 French Jonghi 350  (Read 90732 times)

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Offline thefrenchowl

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Hi, and all the best for this just started New Year, I hope it will fulfill all your dreams...

Some of you might remember my previous forrays onto the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2011, 2013 and 2014, on my home made Harley-Davidson 1954 KHK, supercharged on methanol:

http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.php/topic,8744.0.html

I was toying with updating that bike, but lack of money/sponsors made me think again and change direction. That bike is now retired...

But let's start at the beginning...

In 1976, I was lend a few pre war racing motorcycles photos of the French manufacturer Jonghi. Good occasion at the time to make an indepth article in our Vintage MC Club Magazine. I went to see other friends to collect info and details. At one of them, I saw this fully loaded racing timing chest stamped TT 2:



The TT 2 stamp identified it as the remnants of a rather special bike... In early 1933, the factory owner, an Italian immigrant by the name of Guiseppe Remondini, tried to do a 24 hour World Record with an OHV race bike on the Montlhery Speed Bowl near Paris. They twice failed and he decided to dampen somewhat the engine output by grafting the top end of the sidevalve model on it while discarding the OHV parts.

The little sidevalve bike had a top speed of about 90mph in that guise and at the 3rd attempt, it all came good and the record was theirs at about 72mph over the 24 hours on a cold March day.

In the paddock before the attempt:



During the run, Louis Jeannin in the saddle, their star rider:



Patrick

« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 12:59:49 PM by thefrenchowl »
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Offline Glen

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Interesting, thanks.
Glen
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South West, Utah

Offline sofadriver

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Very cool!

Do you have the rest of it?
Mike in Tacoma

"aww, what the hell - let's just do it".............

Bike #833
100cc A/G, A/F and APS/G (in 2019)

Offline thefrenchowl

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Quote
sofadriver: Do you have the rest of it?

 :-D

Jump from 1976 to May last year when I went with my street 350cc SV Jonghi TJ 4 at the Montlhery Speed Bowl for the Vintage Revival, one of the better meetings in Europe, sadly only every two years...





The owner of the collection where the TT 2 parts were died in 2000 and the collection is now a trust. I met its curator there and he told me to pay him a visit next time I came to France (... I still live in Great Britain!!!)

So, a Saturday last November I headed South and met him... He very kindly put the TT 2 parts in my hands and told me if there was a man to revive them, it was me. I was shocked, I dreamed of owning these parts for more than 40 years and here they were in my custody. No money changed hands, I had some old memorabilia bits he wanted, so a good piece of barter.

Patrick
« Last Edit: January 03, 2018, 01:52:22 PM by thefrenchowl »
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Offline panic

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Excellent, love it!

Offline Old Scrambler

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Numerous discussions in the US about what ever happened to the reportedly 'dozens' of French motorcycle manufacturers from before WWII. This would be great......... :-)
2011 AMA Record - 250cc M-PG TRIUMPH Tiger Cub - 82.5 mph
2013 AMA Record - 250cc MPS-PG TRIUMPH Tiger Cub - 88.7 mph
2018 AMA Record - 750cc M-CG HONDA CB750 sohc - 136.6 mph
2018 AMA Record - 750cc MPS-CG HONDA CB750 sohc - 143.005 mph
2018 AMA Record - 750cc M-CF HONDA CB750 sohc - 139.85 mph
2018 AMA Record - 750cc MPS-CF HONDA CB750 sohc - 144.2025 mph

Chassis Builder / Tuner: Dave Murre

Offline thefrenchowl

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Hi Old Scrambler,

Dozens... You mean Hundreds!!!

A friend has published 2 books (a 3rd one is due...) listing the 600 plus makers that were around Paris between the early dawn, 1871, and 1988...

Jonghi was one of them, located on the outskirts of Paris.

Not to mention all the rest scattered around France, some big, some small...



The lady on the cover is Madame Jolivet on her racing Pecourt, about 250cc, on the 12th of October 1902... Photo Jules Beau, courtesy Gallica, the French National Library.

I'll post the link later...

Patrick
« Last Edit: January 04, 2018, 02:57:17 AM by thefrenchowl »
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Offline thefrenchowl

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Gallica site, 77 pages of Motorcycles photographs from the early days till about 1928.

There's more at Gallica, but that's a quick search!!!

http://gallica.bnf.fr/services/engine/search/sru?operation=searchRetrieve&version=1.2&startRecord=0&maximumRecords=15&page=1&query=%28gallica%20all%20%22motocyclette%22%29%20and%20dc.type%20all%20%22image%22%20sortby%20dc.date%2Fsort.ascending

Click on thumbnails to enlarge, then on left, button to download as JPG or PDF...

Patrick
« Last Edit: January 04, 2018, 03:33:00 AM by thefrenchowl »
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Offline TrickyDicky

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I recently stumbled across many photographs by Jules Beau. It seems he took most of the land speed photos (in France, up to about 1910) that crop up on the internet.

Try https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jules_Beau.

Offline thefrenchowl

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Yes, TrickyDicky,

Jules Beau was a prolific photographer of anything to do with sport, bicycles, horses, athletism, boats, cars and motorbikes...

Patrick
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Offline thefrenchowl

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Hi all,

When I arrived back in GB in November with the TT 2 parts, I thought it would take me about a year or two to either find a suitable donor bike or to persuade one of my friends to part with their own Jonghi...

My own Jonghi, shown above, just took me too long to get and refurbish and I did not fancy restarting the process again!!!

Well, as soon as November morphed into December, a suitable Jonghi appeared for sale on a french adverts site and I promply made arrangements to purchase it.





So I was off to France in a rented van between Christmas and New Year to collect it...

Patrick
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Offline sofadriver

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Wow, what a find!

It's so complete I wonder if it's worth more unrestored?

But since I know you won't be able to resist - let the restoration begin!  :-D  :-D
Mike in Tacoma

"aww, what the hell - let's just do it".............

Bike #833
100cc A/G, A/F and APS/G (in 2019)

Offline thefrenchowl

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Yes, Sofadriver,

It is very complete, but sadly, was stored for years near the sea so it's like pebble dashed with little rust holes from salt attacks.

That's only the 5th sidevalve Jonghi known to man, these things are rare (there are far more OHV Jonghi survivors...), so yes, it wasn't given away...

And yes also, it will be morphed into a reconstruction of the 1933 Record Bike...

A family shot just after the successful attempt in March 1933:



From left to right around the record breaker: Marcel Perrin, Louis Jeannin on the bike and Hector Andreino, they took turns of one hour stints except for the last three hours done by Jeannin on his own to bring home an ailing engine, plus the engineer, Guiseppe Remondini. Between Perrin and Jeannin, cigarette in mouth is another famous frenchman, Clement Garreau who became France's Norton importer after WWII, and in between Andreino and Remondini, Remondini's father, Pietro, who came from Italy to refloat the already troubled company. At the extreme right, the smartly dressed lady is Bianca Remondini, Guiseppe's wife...

Patrick
« Last Edit: January 09, 2018, 01:23:50 PM by thefrenchowl »
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Offline sofadriver

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At the extreme right, the smartly dressed lady is Bianca Remondini, Guiseppe's wife...

Patrick
Didn't I just see Megan Markle wearing that hat?
Mike in Tacoma

"aww, what the hell - let's just do it".............

Bike #833
100cc A/G, A/F and APS/G (in 2019)

Offline thefrenchowl

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Fashions come and go... and come back!!!!
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