GOLD STARS

Gold Star Photo Gallery

Current belief is that the Gold Stars shipped specially for Daytona were the same as those available to the public albeit with the benefit of additional care and hand-finishing by the competition department staff. Remember that Gold Stars were always built in the competition department anyway

There were two significant exceptions.
1949 - The bike rode by Tommy McDermott in 1949 was an early 500cc prototype – the 500cc wouldn’t be available to the public until later.

1954 - The bikes prepared for Daytona in 1954 were the first to benefit from the consistent development programme that had been instituted by Bert Hopwood, and put into practice by Roland Pike.  The obvious external differences compared with the production bikes are:

Special rigid lightweight frame – BSA claimed to have made 100 or so for homologation purposes.
Oil tank made by welding two tool-box halves together
Fabricated alloy top yoke
Sheet alloy shrouds around the rear wheel to protect from sand
Vokes oil filter
Front brake lever is reversed – allegedly better effect on the trailing shoe·     
Longer front fork shrouds
Daytona gearbox – stamped DAY

 Note that the engine is the BB type. Although the larger-fin CB type was almost ready for production, Daytona was run in compliance with AMA class ‘C’ regulations – essentially production- based bikes with minor modifications. This meant that the racers had to use the BB engine because the CB type, although ready wouldn’t go on-sale till later in 1954. They could still benefit from the knowledge gained in the development of the CB and we might expect to see some of that, but it appears to have gone further.  The internals on the 54 Gold Stars were quite different from those sold to the public. We believe that Roland Pike, who always favoured the Gold Star over the twin used his authority to use some of the ideas he had experimented with as private projects. We believe this stretches the class ‘C’ rules somewhat but BSA probably weren’t alone in an activity that has always been ‘part of the game’ in production racing.

In 1955, the big-fin motor was available to the public and so was used on the Daytona bikes too. We don’t know if there were any internal modifications on these bikes because we haven’t been able to take one to bits and check any special parts.

Pike and Hopwood both left BSA in 1955 and it seems that the motivation to develop the Daytona bikes further went with them.

In 1956 BSA advertising was particulalry strident about the bikes raced at Daytona being the same as the ones sold to the public. Again, we have not been able to dismantle a 56 Daytona Gold Star to check but anecdotal and photographic evidence supports this. We are unsure about the use of swing-arm frames in this year. BSA did start using them in preference to the Pike rigid frame but we’re not sure what year they started this – 1956 or 1957.  Shipping records suggest rigid frames were supplied right up to 1957 but photos of the event appear to show both swinging-arm and rigid in use. 

We believe the same is true for 1957.

SHOOTING STARS

Shooting Star Photo Gallery

By 1952 BSA were starting to ship twins specially prepared for the event to the US distributors

Same is true for 1953. Evidence from a recently restored example in the US shows a considerable amount of hand-finishing, polishing and lightening of engine internals  on these bikes in the competition shop.

As with the Gold Star, 1954 is the first year there are any significant changes in specification reflecting the increased commitment made to the event by Bert Hopwood and Roland Pike.

The obvious external differences are :-

Special rigid lightweight frame – BSA claimed to have made 100 or so for homologation purposes.
Oil tank made by welding two tool-box halves together
Fabricated alloy top yoke
Sheet alloy shrouds around the rear wheel to protect from sand
Vokes oil filter
Front brake lever is reversed – allegedly better effect on the trailing shoe
Longer front fork shrouds
Daytona gearbox – stamped DAY
Twin carburretor cylinder heads. The 54-55 stock A7ss was fitted with a twin port head but a bolt-on single piece manifold. Hopwood hoped to develop the twins into Gold Star beaters and kept a 2 carb option open for production bikes but used the same barrel for the Daytona racers, resolving the homologation issue.
Thick-flange 6 fin barrel – this is slimmer in profile than the standard barrel and looks very similar to the earlier semi-unit type barrel. We believe this was fitted for reasons of strength though there is no evidence on the track that this was an issue. This was a special part but we have anecdotal evidence that these were available as service replacement spares from BSA later in the 1950’s– perhaps a batch was made for homologation purposes.
Special 358 Daytona cam – this was available separately as a spare from US dealers and was copied by 3^rd party UK manufacturers in the 60’s.

 We believe that the Shooting Star engines did not receive the ‘Pike’ treatment – he was not a fan of the twins - and were basically stock with the above exceptions and expert hand-finishing from the competition shop fitters.

We believe the 1955 bikes were the same.

We believe the 1956 bikes had swing-arm frames but still had the 6 fin thick flange barrel.

We know very little about twins in 1957 and believe this was the last year BSA prepared twins for Daytona. After Hopwood left BSA in 1955 the motivation to do anything with the twins – race or roadster – was gone.

And since BSAs directors already had a very successful sporting 500cc bike that sold in the US – the Gold Star – why complicate the marketing message with another?