Lucifer

“Lucifer” - I bought an unidentified motor from some guys in Holland because the oil tank was cast into the front of the engine and it reminded me of Jay Leno's jaw, how could I miss a motor like that?  It took many Emails and phone calls and guesses to identify the motor and still, I had only narrowed it down to 4 or 5 maybes.  I decided to put modern wheels and chassis on the bike and make it into a proper racer.  After about a year of hard work, she was almost finished good enough to take to the Barber Vintage Festival.  I knew it would be noticed and questions would be asked, that's one reason I do this.  We got many guesses as to the make of the motor and finally, a slender man , I later found out lived in Germany, walked up and asked who owned it; of course, I admitted I did.  I asked him if he knew what make of motor it was - it has Lucifer embedded into it and they made German bicycles in the 1920s and 30s.  He said it was not a Lucifer and it was in fact a NSU (German) 251... I ask how he knew...he answered he had 3 of them and if I worked really hard I might get 10 hp out of it. Not hardly the beginning of a great racer.  He then said it's got the wrong frame, which I replied it took me a whole year to build the frame and the rest of the bike.  The Irony of it all is when I got home I looked up a NSU 251 and he was right Leno's chin and all, but I then realized to my amazement that if I had seen the stock motorcycle it would have repulsed me and I would have never considered it worthy of all the work I was going to put into it.  So the moral of this might be sometimes a few of the parts are more beautiful than the whole, but not always.
 
NFS - Personal collection of Rick Booth