AMONG the 600 irreplacable machines which perished in last month's National Motorcycle Museum inferno was an historic Norton with a strong local connection.

The ex-works Norton 750cc Commando production racer belonging to classic racer and bike repairer Dave Latheron -- proprietor of D & K Motorcycles in Leigh -- was one of the casualties.

Initially Dave says he was told his machine had been totally lost in the blaze but two weeks ago his hopes were raised when he was told the frame of his pride and joy had survived.

Dave was considering the museum's offer of rebuilding the ex-Peter Williams racer which between 1970 and 1974 chalked up a staggering number of successes -- but when he travelled to the Midlands to view the charred remains of his pride and joy he was stunned to be told it had disappeared.

Destroyed

A saddened Dave told the Journal : "It's tragic that so much of motorcycling history has been destroyed. I was not keen on the museum suggestion of them having a replica machine built to replace my bike -- it might have looked the same but it would just have been a copy.

"But when they told me the frame had survived I decided to go down to have a look and consider the offer. I was amazed when I arrived there for someone else to tell me it had gone. There was a suggestion that it had been thrown into a builders' skip, but why should they just pick that one when there were others lying around which looked fit for nothing more than scrap?

"I'd been told everything aluminium, like engine and gearbox casings, had melted and all those machines with brazed-up frames had literally fallen apart -- but my bike's frame was welded."

Dave had painstakingly restored the classic racer and had loaned the machine to the museum which housed an amazing collection of motor cycling history.

"I thought the machine would be safe in the museum -- that's why I put it there. I suppose there will be compensation but I would rather still have the machine. Nothing can buy history."

His Norton was one of a handful of on-loan machines among the 800 exhibits -- the rest belonged to museum owner Roy Richards. Three quarters of the collection was badly damaged in the raging fire believed to have been started by a discarded cigarette.

Dave's machine was built in 1970 at the Norvil race shop at Thruxton. It won the Thruxton 500 Mile race three times, the Swedish GP twice, the Hutchinson 100 three times and was twice second in the Isle of Man TT races, never quite getting the better there of the works Triumph 'Slippery Sam' which also perished in the museum blaze. But on four occasions Dave's Norton set fastest or record laps in the Production TT and 31 years ago Peter Williams rode it to second place and was fastest proddy bike through the Highlander speed trap at almost 142 miles per hour.

A spokesman for the National Motorcycle Museum said: "It has been an exceptionally difficult period since the disastrous fire with our staff working hard to identify and catalogue some 600 machines destroyed in the fire.

"Unfortunately is seems that in the immediate aftermath Mr Latheron was given an indication that some rudimentary parts of his machine had survived the blaze. This, sadly, was not the case.

"We are in contact with Mr Latheron and are making every effort to ensure the tragic events at the Museum do not leave him disadvantaged in any way."