Latest Car Extreme: It's back to 1957 with Keith Bryen, Aussie privateer who secured a works Moto Guzzi ride.....

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

It's back to 1957 with Keith Bryen, Aussie privateer who secured a works Moto Guzzi ride.....

Posted by car 2011 at 4:02 AM

I've still quite a few photos stored from Keith Bryen's archive, kindly loaned by him and as you'll remember I've done quite a few blogs on him so far....
Type in "Keith Bryen" in the search facility over on the right of this blog to bring up all I've done on him.
Keith as you'll remember left Australia in 1953 with wife Gwen to join the "Continental Circus", made up of a happy go lucky group of racing motorcyclists, mostly from the Commonwealth countries, who followed the GP circuit across Europe each year, riding for start and hopefully finishing money to fund their adventure.
Keith was asked by Moto Guzzi to ride for them in the last few races of the 1957 season.
"The bubble burst" in January 1958, when back in Australia and readying for the forthcoming 1958 season in Europe with Moto Guzzi, he received a letter from the factory informing him that as Moto Guzzi in concert with two other Italian factories had withdrawn from racing, there would be no machines for him to use....
Rather gut wrenching...
Left Click on the images to enlarge...

Keith on a factory AJS 7R during practice in IOM TT.

Practicing on his G45 Matchless in 1957 IOM TT.

13th in IOM Senior TT in 1957.

Now on a works Moto Guzzi, Keith won 350cc race at the Norisring circuit at Nurnberg West Germany, Vally Lundberg on the left and Eric Hinton on the right.