The Quasar Project
What is 'The Quasar Project' ?
The main purpose of this project is to provide a central point of contact for Quasar owners, which can offer technical support and access to Quasar-related information and resources. I also aim to stimulate as much interest as possible in Quasars and this type of FF's generally.
There are only 22 Quasars in the world, their owners have little or no contact with each other, and they no longer have access to factory technical support. As a consequence, few of their bikes ever see the light of day, most of them seem to be sitting in garages waiting for something or other to get fixed.
The Objectives of the project are :-
My goal is to track down all the other Quasar owners in the UK and get them talking to each other. To pool information on sources for parts, and services applicable to Quasars, and to offer encouragement to others to get their bikes back on the road and make it easier to keep them running.
The first task, then, is to find out 'Where Are They Now ?'
I've been looking for companies that can supply or re-manufacture parts for the Quasar. I'm sure that everyone could benefit if we could build up a list of relevant parts suppliers.
Apart from my experiences of building, running and re-building my own Quasar, I have a couple of other Resources which I would be happy to make available to other Quasar owners in order to make it easier for them to get their bikes up and running.
I'm interested in collecting together all available Quasar-related printed material, road-tests, articles etc. and any Video footage I can track down.
I have a pretty extensive list of Quasar, FF and Hub-centre Steering articles which you can get to from the Publications Page.
Whilst I've had more fun on my Quasar than any other bike I've ever owned, I'm convinced that there's considerable scope for improving on the design in virtually every area.
The main limitation of the beast is, of course, the power to weight ratio arising from the 40bhp/710lb package. Although this doesn't impair the Quasar's ability to run down the road at high speed and provide an exciting time round the bends, it can prove limiting when brisk overtaking is required. The good news is that both sides of the equation can be improved, although it's easier to boost power than it is to cut weight. This is a bit of a shame because one of my other bug-bears is how heavy and cumbersome the bike is to handle at the kerb side, perhaps a reverse gear would help ? I'm particularly struck by how hard it is to turn the front wheel at a stand-still which, I'd guess, is down to the geometry of the front forks.
Other areas where there is obvious scope for improvement are the gear-change, the lights, pillion-carrying capacity, etc etc
I appreciate that some owners may want to keep their bikes absolutely authentic, but I'm hoping that many would be interested in helping to develop an improved 'Quasar for the Twenty-First Century'.
For details see 'Building a Better Quasar'
SCOPE
Whilst I see this exercise as being primarily for the benefit of owners of the original 21 Reliant-engined Quasars I think that we have plenty in common with the owners of the various Jap bike engined kits and conversions that Malcolm did subsequently. Indeed I've found a lot of common interest with the Voyager owners that I've talked to too.
On this basis I would like to include in our 'gang' all owners or constructers of feet-first two-wheelers, (although I exclude from this the owners of production scooters, and scooter-based designs, as their interests are already amply represented by the BFF club).
Last updated 24/10/2004