As Betcha Y’all didn’t know He sponsored a
Motorcycle race team, Eh?
Talk about the ultimate Rags to Riches story,
and one such character has to be Walter wolf. For which any Diehard F1
Afficionado will recall the name from the owner of His Formula 1 team during
the mid-1970’s.
According to Car & Driver’s Brendan McAleer
, Wolf, now 84, made His moneyduring the 1970’s by successfully speculating
upon North Sea Oil.
And Wolf’s penchant for gambling won Him a
Ferrari 512BB on a handshake bet with Il Commendatore, nee Enzo Ferrari! With
the bet being over the outcome of the 1977 Monaco Grand Prix. Which Jody
Scheckter won aboard His Wolf-Ford Cosworth DFV V-8 racecar. With the podium
rounded out by Ferrari’s Niki Lauda and Carlos Reutemann being second and
third.
Whenever I can, since Car & Driver has a
nasty habit of routinely cutting off it’s “News-feed” to the NFB’s Newsline for
The Blind telephone service. Which currently has been out of circulation since Gory
May 5th; Come on Car & Driver, Quit being Putzes!
Although
I’m happy to say that the content issue’s been resolved for now. Yet like I
said, this is a reoccurring problema, but I digress…
Thus apparently Wayback’ in late December,
2022, I learned of a rare 1986 Suzuki RG500 Gamma Walter Wolf motorcycle up for
auction on the Bring A Trailer website over the Christmas holiday. For which I
tend to recall the scooter’s owner was in Washington…
Naturally I’d never heard of the Suzuki RG500
Gamma Walter wolf motorcycle, which were produced as tribute bikes for two
years between 1986-87.
With the author noting this big bore two stroke
motorcycle being barely street legal! Finished in the traditional dark blue,
gold and red colour scheme of Walter Wolf Racing. With the 498cc “Thumper”
sporting four individual carberators
And silencers producing 95bhp, with an
11,000RPM redline.
Reportedly Wolf in collabouration with Suzuki,
formed a motorcycle racing team in the early 1980’s. With Japanese rider Masaru
Mizutani winning the ’82 500cc All Japan motorcycle championship.
Yet the motorcycle Walter wolf Racing team’s
history is murky at best. Since the further I attempt finding information, the
more “Breadcrumbs” I find. With Wolf racing Suzuki’s as early as 1980, along
with Mizutani competing in two F.I.M. GP500 Motorcycle Championship events in
1986. Aboard you guessed it, an RG500 Gamma, albeit reportedly only being
produced between 1981-84.
As the latter Gamma model owes its lineage to
its RG500 predecessor, which debuted in 1974. And with considerable testing
effort by Barry Sheene, the Britain would go onto win the F.I.M. GP500 World
championship twice in 1976-77.
Then Suzuki’s RG500 Gamma would win two further
GP500 World Championships between 1981-82, with Marco Lucchinellsi and Franco Uncini
respectively.
Making it even murkier, was stumbling into
another Wolf Gamma “Scooter” having been sold on Bring A Trailer previously.
This time being a 1985 Suzuki RG250 Gamma Walter wolf example…
And according to the Walter Wolf World website, the Canadian business tycoon actually had “tribute” Suzuki models of RG50, RG250, RG400 and other Suzuki models sold in His Wolf Racing livery during this timeframe.
