An Interview with Max Poultney

An Interview with Max Poultney By Kandee Nelson
Kandee Nelson	Very little has been written about Steve McQueen's motorcycle interests in the 1950's and to my knowledge, images and accounts of McQueen's racing from this era are extremely rare if they exist at all. So you can imagine my surprise when I found Max Poultney's pictures of Steve buried in the pages of the U.K.'s Sidcup Motorcycle Club photo archives! I was eventually able to contact Max and through a series of emails he graciously indulged me with his impressive knowledge of the era and explained the photos with a keen eye for detail.
Interview
K.N: Max, how did you first come to meet Steve McQueen? MAX: It was at a Brands Hatch grass track meeting that I first met Steve McQueen, we all knew him as an American film actor who was mad on motorcycle racing. This of course was in the 1950's and before Steve made his name as a major star.

Max racing the Trophy up Knatts Valley Hill Climb.
This photo gives you a real idea of how steep the hill climb was.

I next met Steve at a hill climb at Knatts Valley in Kent sometime in the mid-1950's, which was then and still is, I believe, organized by the Sidcup Motor Cycle Club. My brother-in-law Peter Steele and I entered with Peter running his much modified DOT on methanol and I riding my TRIUMPH Trophy. To my amazement I was paired with Steve McQueen for one run up the hill. Steve turned up with an old rigid framed, girder forked, fore & aft engined Douglas. As we were waiting for the start I asked Steve what he was riding he said, "I think it's a Douglas factory racer that won a Tourist Trophy race in the Isle of Man before WW2 and we're running it on dope". At the start Steve revved the Douglas's engine flat out and then as the flag went down he dropped the clutch so all I saw was the dust from his rear wheel as he flew up the hill. When I eventually got to the top I said to Steve, "Blimey Steve you flew up the hill". "Yes", he said, "I had to because as I dropped the clutch I came out of the saddle and then landed back on my bollocks so that I had to get to the top to relieve the pain!"

K.N: Can you tell me a bit more about the bike Steve was riding?

MAX: Well, the bike that Steve was riding is almost certainly a Douglas DC6, a bike designed for speedway racing, known in the USA as Dirt Track racing, with a 500cc ohv flat-twin, with an extremely low center of gravity, which suited the leg-trailing riding style on the cinder tracks at that time. It was the unbeatable machine of the 1927/'28/'29 seasons.

It's quite possible that Steve's bike was similar to that ridden by one of the most celebrated riders of Douglas DC6, Fay Taylour, she was the most famous woman motorcyclist in the late 1920's, and a champion speedway competitor.

K.N: I noticed the saddle on Steve's bike is like that of later models, was this a works bike or did Douglas run all the TT racers with that seating from the factory? It seems that the DC6 that Steve rode had some historical significance even then, having won at the Isle of Man previously.

From the Archives of Maxwell Poultney: Photographer Len Thorpe catches Steve McQueen as he waits to return
down the hill after winning his race against Max Poultney at the Knatts Valley Hill Climb in Kent, sometime in the mid 1950's
Steve McQueen at the Knatts Valley Hill Climb in Kent

Steve McQueen at the Knatts Valley Hill Climb in Kent

MAX: DC stood for Douglas Competition. 'Dougies' as we called them, were not a sporting bike in my era 1950-60s for by then they had materially changed to a 'pussy cat' bike called the Douglas Dragonfly with a horizontally opposed 350cc flat twin engine mounted across the chassis like BMW. Whereas if you look at the photos of Steve's bike you'll see that the engine is mounted 'fore and aft', as we used to call it, that is, in line with the chassis and not across it. This gave the Douglas bikes three advantages and two disadvantages.

Their advantages were:
1) Low centre of gravity so it's much easier to heel the bike over when cornering hence their superiority at speedway racing in the late 1920's.
2) Less air resistance without two cylinders hanging out in the wind, and
3) More importantly they could mount a large heavy flywheel on the crank of the engine which provides great torque and maintains high revolutions hence their success at Speedway where they raced in only one gear. Other twin engines used their crankshafts as flywheels but had much less mass (weight) because they had also to convert linear motion into circular motion and therefore provided much less torque.

The Douglas's two disadvantages were:
1) The rear cylinder was out of the airstream so didn't dissipate as much heat as the front cylinder (a fact that Volkswagen discovered 30 years later when they increased the size of the Beetle engine in their camper wagons and owners suffered overheating and engine seizure problems from the inadequate air flow over the rear cylinders).
2) There was no room for the gearbox! So Douglas had to mount it over the rear cylinder.

Now look again at the photo of Steve's bike and you can just make out the lug under the tank where the hand gear-change was pivoted. So Steve's comment "I think it's a Douglas factory racer that won a Tourist Trophy race in the Isle of Man before WW2 and we're running it on dope" was correct. I think that this late 1920's (Pre-WW2) Douglas TT racer was preserved and modified for sprint or hill climbs. The engine has been modified to run on an alcohol fuel hence Steve's comment, "we're running it on dope". The front brake has been converted to twin leading shoe and has an air scoop added. But what is really odd is that the rear wheel sprocket is on the left as opposed to the right side. Douglas Motorcycles were built in Bristol, England from 1882 to 1957 so the bike that Steve rode was a relic from the late 1920's. However Bristol, like London, was heavily blitzed by the Luftwafer from 1940 through to 1944 so it's a wonder that these old racers survived the war.

KN: When you were racing with Steve at the Knatts Valley Hill Climb, who was the guy to beat?

MAX: Alfy Hagon.

KN: You've owned a few bikes and have such an interesting history yourself. How did it all start with you?

From the Archives of Maxwell Poultney. Photo by Len Thorpe.
Max: "This is a shot of Steve racing up the hill against, I think, Alfy Hagon in his JAP
engined special. If I remember right Alf won the 500cc class beating Steve into second place."
Steve races against Alfie Hagon

Max aboard the 'UPB 871' Francis Barnett 197cc trial bike
The 'UPB 871' Francis Barnett 197cc trial bike

Max on the Triumph Trophy WPC 810 in trials trim

MAX: Back in the '50s I was an apprentice (engineer) in the Blackwall shipyard on the river Thames earning just 27/6p a week (which roughly equates to $5 and on that pay all I could afford was a bicycle. I lived with my parents in a London suburb 26 miles away. So each day I had to ride 26 miles through London and then after I'd finish my day's work cycle all the way back to Harrow, kept me fit though! Then in 1952 an accident changed my life. I was cycling home from a Rover Moot (Scout Camp Meeting) in Isleworth crossing the Great West Road, a major three lane highway into and out of London when I was hit by a driver who jumped the lights doing over 40 miles an hour. I bounced off his bonnet, smashed into his windscreen and was thrown 20 yards up the road. The doctors examining me said, "by rights you should be dead...we came to the conclusion that you didn't see the car and therefore didn't freeze up so that when it hit, you were like a sack of potatoes and that's why you've survived. You're a very lucky man." The driver was convicted and I was awarded compensation. So I spent it on a motorcycle, a Frances-Barnett 197cc trials bike.

Max riding the 500T up a very slippery chalk bank

Max trialing the 500T

In more recent years, Max on his son’s Suzuki

Steve McQueen strolling through (what is most likely) Comerford's UK Motorcycle Shop sometime in the 1950's

Steve McQueen strolling through Comerford's Motorcycle Shop sometime in the 1950's

I completed my apprenticeship in 1954 and went to sea with Cunard on the RMS Queen Elizabeth doing regular voyages to North America so I could only scramble perhaps once a month depending upon my time in port. At that time I was earning more money as an officer and could afford to upgrade to a more expensive bike. So soon I got tired of UPB 871 and ordered a Triumph Trophy Scout from Comerford's, yes the same dealer that Steve had frequented. By 1959 I decided to "swallow the anchor" as seamen say when they leave the sea as I'd met Dorothy.

I traded in the Trophy for a Norton 500T and we were married in 1960. Then the Norton went for a BSA 500 and a sidecar and finally to a Mini. So my cycling days were over...

KN: There's a picture (to the left) of McQueen in a bike shop that appears to be from the same era as your photos at Knatts Valley, the history of which has puzzled me for a long time, can you shed any light on it for me? (editor's note: this picture is not from the Sidcup Motorcycle Club photo archives or the Maxwell Poultney collection).

MAX: The bike in the foreground appears to have a British number plate on the front mudguard with the registration ORX 6796. In Britain at that time, 1950s, it was mandatory to have both a front and rear number plates. Road bikes invariably had their front number plate mounted just as the bike in the picture. I don't think you had similar numbers or licence plates in the USA back in 1950s. Comerfords were big motorcycle dealers fifty years ago but they are no longer in business.

KN: Thank you for taking the time to share this rare glimpse into Steve's earliest racing days. I know McQueen fans everywhere will be thrilled to see your pictures!