After receiving permission to recreate the Honda Six from the Japanese manufacturers, renowned classic restoration expert George Beale was soon to discover that this had been the easy bit!

For as he began his marathon engineering journey back in 1998, obstacles soon presented themselves as he made the first of almost 40 visits to France establishing the engineering resource required to replicate the grand prix icon.

The bulk of this mileage came from visits to the JPX specialist engineering factory at Vibraye near Le Mans, where the trial-and-error first steps were taken in creating the patterns from which the re-cast parts would be made in a neighbouring foundry.

Once George delivered the donor engine from the original Mike Hailwood 297cc RC174, owned by Tokyo collector Terry Murayama, there was an expensive chain of activity before production could be resumed 30 years after the machine last raced.

Disassembly, measurement, drawing, patterning, CADCAM translation …time and serious money!

“The setting up process cost around £150,000 (£120,000 for the patterns and £34,000 for the drawings!)” explained George.

Together with travel expenses and costly wrongly-produced titanium castings, the bill for preparations, with nothing tangible to show for the first few month’s work, had reached over £200,000!