The story
The project was inspired by Lord Hesketh, who planned to revive the failing British motorcycle industry and at the time had a background of F1 racing. Lord Hesketh wanted to use the skills and facilities built up in that pursuit to greater effect and production of a quality motorcycle was born.
The Hesketh motorcycle was developed on the Easton Neston estate, with the prototype running in the spring of 1980 using a special Weslake engine. The V-twin V1000 (based loosely on the marketing panache of the Vincent Motorcycle but looking much-like a contemporary Ducati 860GT), offered all sorts of advances; for example, it was the first British bike with four valves per cylinder and twin overhead camshafts (although commonplace in Japanese machines).
After two years of development, the project was announced to the press and partners were sought for the manufacturing. However, none were forthcoming and so Lord Hesketh formed Hesketh Motorcycles plc. In 1982 a modern purpose-built factory was set up to manufacture the Hesketh V1000 motorcycles in Daventry.
However, there were numerous problems. The bikes were heavy, which was made worse by a high riding style and unreliability, with numerous manufacturing problems adding to the problem of overheating the rear cylinder due to lack of air flow. The resultant
bad press combined with an underdeveloped bike, lack of cash and a collapsing market meant that after the production of 139 bikes, the company went into receivership.
Cagiva visited the Daventry facility in September 1982, with a view to absorbing the Hesketh into their range of machines. Sales Director Luigi Giacometti reported to Motor Cycle News that they were disappointed to learn that all the components were sourced from outside suppliers, that there were no manufacturing facilities excepting a few trollies, and that the Receiver wanted £150,000 (pounds sterling) for only a pile of papers and drawings.
He was sure they could cure the Hesketh mechanical problems, but Cagiva withdrew their interest after Hesketh marketing chief Peter Gaydon appeared in a TV interview, stating he feared a drop in quality and that the marque would end-up as a 'spaghetti special' under Cagiva.
The Triumph Motorcycles co-operative looked at buying the rights to the machine, as they lacked a new model beyond the aged Triumph Bonneville. A V1000 machine even appeared with a Triumph badge on its tank, but Triumph also lacked funding to buy and develop the machine.
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In 1983, Lord Hesketh (who had acquired the main rights from the old company's liquidation) formed a new company called Hesleydon Ltd to manufacture a revamped V1000 with a full fairing, called the Vampire. However, although the company had produced a motorcycle with export potential in mind, the Vampire retained too many of the V1000's faults and only 40 were produced before the company closed again in 1984.
Crowdfunding
When Lord Hesketh's plans were first announced, they were greeted favourably by the British motorcycle press, who regarded them as the beginnings of the rebirth of the British motorbike industry. A considerable amount of the investment capital was raised from motorcyclist enthusiasts. After the company collapsed, such small investors (who in hindsight seem to have been hopelessly optimistic) lost most of their money, whereas at the liquidation sale Lord Hesketh managed to reacquire most of the manufacturing rights cheaply. This led to a certain amount of bad blood, and Lord Hesketh was suspected of asset-stripping.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hesketh Motorcycles, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4