A Grid Of Moto GP Bikes Go To Auction From The Phil Morris Collection

“The original collection was road bikes, then it changed up to speedway, concours road bikes, and then thoroughbred racing bikes,” he explained.

Phil created a dedicated space for the collection in 2007 when it became too big for his home and his wife’s patience. Some forty to sixty people would visit every Thursday until the museum was forced to close temporarily during the last year.

By 2014 Phil stepped up to adding Moto GP bikes from Paul Bird Motorsport. The CRT era, Claiming Rules Teams, was something dreamt up by organisers Dora due to spiralling costs and collapsing grid numbers. Back in 2011 for the Australian GP there were only 14 starters and 10 finishers. These bikes were eligible to run alongside factory teams using production based engines in prototype chassis.

For 2012 the change from 800 cc to 1000 cc with a maximum bore size of 81 mm. Aprilia used their V4 engine from the RSV4 production bike, which in the Moto GP spec produced around 230 bhp. These engines would be returned to Aprilia for rebuilding.

“Aprilia had two teams employing their engine: Paul Bird with his British GPMS-built chassis, and Ioda using their whole bike. It was a big change from 2013. PBM’s bikes occasionally got into the points, but it was clear that the power of their superbike-tuned engines was way below that needed to compete against the MotoGP-engined bikes.” said Motocourse in 2014.