Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1546787
38 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com Greeves motorcycles during this me won the Sco Trial, the European Trials Championship, and the Sco sh Six Days Trial. And, although Greeves focused primarily on off-road models, the compa- ny also produced a factory road racer – the 250cc Silverstone, one of which won the 250cc class at the 1964 Manx Grand Prix on the Isle of Man, with an average speed of 86.19 mph. Another 250 Greeves finished 5 th at the 1964 Daytona road races. All this, and many more tremendous suc- cesses, came from a ny company that had been in business for barely ten years at the me. Development of Greeves off-road machines con- nued, and in 1964 the new Challenger model was introduced. In 1966, the company finally relinquished its trademark leading-link front sus- pension for a conven onal hydraulic fork, then in 1967 added a 360cc version of the Challenger to its lineup. In 1968, Greeves added a 350cc road racer and created a street-legal trail bike called the Ranger, primarily for export. Also in 1968, Villiers ceased produc on of their long-running engine program, forcing Greeves to produce powerplants in-house. 1969 brought two new MX models in 250cc and 380cc displacement. These were called the Griffon and featured fully tubular frames. During these early years of two-stroke devel- opment, Greeves motorcycles enjoyed a sig- nificant power-to-weight advantage over their four-stroke compe tors, which had dominated motorcycle compe on up to that point. That advantage, along with solid chassis engineering and a unique, effec ve suspension system, led to an amazing series of successes that Greeves achieved over about ten years. While the four- strokes were not completely finished as the 1960's progressed, with Jeff Smith winning the 1964 and 1965 World Motocross Championships aboard an excep onally lightened and well-de- veloped factory BSA, the two-stroke onslaught was inevitable. Bert Greeves did indeed con nue development of the original Greeves formula throughout produc on of his machines. S ll, heavy compe on from other manufacturers of similar lightweight two-strokes, such as Husqvar- na, Maico, and products from Japanese compa- nies, was coming on strong.