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In 1974, Australians registered 80,538 brand new motorcycles. That's more than eight times as many as in 1966.
Explores Australia's 1970s motorcycle boom, the Amaroo Park races, the film Stone, and the market crash with lasting impacts on riding culture.
Key Takeaways
- The 1970s motorcycle boom was driven by Japanese imports and popularized by showroom racing events.
- Cultural conflict existed between the mainstream racing scene and outlaw biker imagery, exemplified by the film Stone.
- Economic downturn and youth unemployment contributed to the rapid decline of motorcycle sales after the boom.
- Safety concerns from inexperienced riders on large motorcycles led to new regulations and helmet standards.
- The boom's impact shaped Australian motorcycle culture, policy, and market for decades.
What the video covers
- In 1974, motorcycle registrations in Australia peaked at over 80,000, an eightfold increase since 1966.
- The Amaroo Park 6-hour race showcased showroom motorcycles, emphasizing stock performance and strict scrutineering.
- British bikes faded as Japanese manufacturers Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki dominated over 90% of the market by 1978.
- The film Stone, featuring Kawasaki 900s and outlaw biker culture, contrasted with the respectable racing image and caused controversy.
- Despite opposition from the motorcycling union, police supported the filming of Stone, highlighting tensions within the motorcycle community.
- The boom ended abruptly by 1977 with registrations nearly halving, influenced by economic factors like youth unemployment.
- Rising motorcycle casualties were linked to inexperienced young riders on powerful bikes, prompting government safety measures.
- New helmet standards and learner restrictions were introduced post-boom, shaping Australian motorcycle culture for decades.
- The rivalry between the 'respectable' showroom racing and the 'outlaw' biker image reflected broader social attitudes toward motorcycling.
- The legacy of the 1970s boom influenced market dynamics, rider training, and regulatory policies in Australia.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Australia's 1970s Motorcycle Boom
- 01:14The Amaroo Park 6-Hour Showroom Race
- 02:32Market Dominance of Japanese Motorcycles
- 04:02Race Controversies and Scrutineering Challenges
- 05:15The Film Stone and Outlaw Biker Culture
- 06:37Police Support and Union Opposition to Stone
- 07:56Decline of the Boom and Economic Factors
- 10:20Safety Concerns and Government Regulations
- 12:43Legacy of the 1970s Motorcycle Boom in Australia
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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And in those years, Australia was shown two very different pictures of a rider. The first was a 6-hour race for showroom bikes on national television, sponsored by an oil company and run by a local motorcycle club. The second was an
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outlaw bikie film that the sports governing body in New South Wales told its clubs to stay away from. But 3 years later, new registrations had almost halved. So, what happened to the boom?
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And who paid for it? Here's the strangest part. Before the 6-hour at Amaroo Park in October 1973, the outlaw film put on a parade for the crowd at the race.
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[music] A motorcycle magazine mentioned it a few months later, almost in passing, and admitted that the parade was all its own writers had seen of the film so far. And that same season, while the governing body was asking its clubs to have
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nothing to do with the production, the New South Wales police were helping to make it. [music] So, the respectable picture and the outlaw picture were sharing a racetrack, [music] and the Kawasaki 900 was the star of both. Only one of those two pictures was
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still pulling a crowd 25 years later, and we'll get to which one. It starts at Amaroo Park in Sydney in October 1970.
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The Willoughby District Motorcycle Club had a new race, and it was built around one rule: you race the motorcycle you could buy. Shiny new production bikes, no changes from the standard specification, and according to Australian Motorcycle News, AMCN to most
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riders, even the air in the tires had to be showroom. Castrol put up $1,000, so the first one was called the Castrol 1000, with riders sprinting across the track to their bikes in a Le Mans start.
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By the second race in 1971, it was officially the Castrol 6-hour. The race secretary for most of its life, Vince Tasserello, put the idea simply, "We wanted to show potential customers how the stock bikes perform straight off the
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showroom floor." He also admitted the scrutineering was very tough and that the club didn't make many friends doing it. That first race was won by a Triumph Bonneville by four laps and the protest started the second the checkered flag
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came down. One of the complaints was that the twist grip on the winning Triumph had come off a Yamaha. So, the first winner of Australia's showroom race was a British bike wearing a Japanese throttle, which turned out to
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be a fair preview of the decade. [music] It was the only time a British bike won the 6-Hour. By 1978, a federal parliamentary report found that Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki between them held more than 90% of the
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Australian motorcycle market. And people watched. AMCN says Channel 7 broadcast the 1971 race live to 750,000 viewers and plenty of them sat through all 6 hours. The race turned into the Australian version of win on Sunday, sell on Monday. But, there was a catch
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that the car makers didn't have. Ford could build a Falcon GTHO for production car racing. A motorcycle importer in Sydney could only race what came out of the crate. And every bike was an import because, as that parliamentary report
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put it plainly, no motorcycles were being made in Australia at all. One place the effort did go was tires. As the decade went on, AMCN adds, the tire importers Dunlop, Metzeler, Continental, and Avon were buzzing up and down the pits at Amaroo with their
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latest rubber. The smaller bikes were pushed out of the race and the field was cut back to 40 starters. So, the scrutineers at Amaroo spent the decade arguing about what counted as standard.
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In 1972, the bike first declared the winner, a Suzuki, ended up disqualified, and the problem was its horn. In 1974, a BMW team was interviewed as the winners.
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Then, a recount dropped them to second, and then their BMW was disqualified for illegal spacers in the front forks.
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There were rumors, too, of race specials built in Japan with their engine numbers sent ahead by telex. AMCN is careful to say those rumors were never actually substantiated, and I'll be just as careful. But, think about why anyone
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bothered fighting over a horn. Every one of those protests asked whether the bike on the grid was really the bike in the showroom window. And in 1974, that was a question tens of thousands of Australians were asking with their own
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money. That was the respectable [music] picture. The other one was being filmed around Sydney at the same time, and Kawasaki's own boardroom wasn't sure it wanted to be in it. Back in 1969, an actor named Sandy Harbutt was in
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Melbourne playing a young policeman in a TV series called The Long Arm. In 1974, he told a magazine that he felt it was the worst television series ever made, and that the only joy he had at the time
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was riding his bike. So, he wrote a film to show other people how that felt. The Australian Film Development Corporation turned it down in 1971, then backed it when he sent it in again.
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Harbutt directed it, produced it, co-wrote it, and played the lead bikie, a gang leader called The Undertaker. The film was Stone. The Undertakers Club was called The Gravediggers, and The Gravediggers rode Kawasaki 900s. That's where Kawasaki got nervous. The same
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magazine piece says there were thoughts in the Kawasaki boardroom that supplying the fleet of customized 900s was risking the image. The bikes made it into the film anyway, and a former gold medal winner from the International Six Days
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Trial spent the shoot keeping 16 of them running for the next day's filming. Then, the Auto Cycle Union of New South Wales, the body that ran the sport in the state, asked its affiliated clubs not to support the film because it would
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be injurious to Australian motorcycling. Harbutt was furious. He said the union had never even asked to read the script, and he had one question for them.
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[music] Have they ever seen a film script before? He also pointed out that an American-based company with a million dollars had recently decided to make its own bike movie in Australia, and the union had supported that one willingly. To be
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fair to the other side, the union's secretary told the same magazine that the keep-away request wasn't something he personally approved of, and he firmly denied that the union had written to the police asking them to stop helping because the police were helping, and a
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lot. [music] Harbutt said the police asked for the script, read it, and then gave him every possible assistance, especially the traffic branch, which helped organize filming on public streets and expressways.
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[music] Without the police, he said, they couldn't have finished the picture. You can see that help in the film's funeral scene. A dead gravedigger rides to his grave in a coffin on the sidecar of a Kawasaki outfit, leading a
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procession of bikes down the Gosford Expressway with the police closing a lane so the riders could get underway.
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Harbutt needed 400 riders for it. He said they came from everywhere, from Armidale, from Bathurst, even from Queensland because they'd heard about the run. Nobody asked for any money in return. For the big pub fight in Balmain, the rival gang was played by
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real clubs, the Hells Angels, the Lone Wolf, and the Black Hawks, with a police public relations man keeping an eye on things. The magazine reported that there were no problems. The cast got into it, too. One scene needed a deep vertical
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grave because a The gets buried standing up. And Hugh Keays-Byrne, the British actor playing the club's sergeant-at-arms, Toad, spent his day off digging it in the cemetery in pouring [music] rain. Harbutt himself wrote a 754, but he told the magazine he planned to
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buy the Kawasaki he'd ridden in the film, and so did several of the other actors. And this is my favorite part of the whole production.
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[music] For one early morning scene, the army carried the cast and crew in a landing barge to a beach you couldn't get to any other way. [music] When they were done, the barge brought them back to
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north side, where the bathers watched a military landing craft pull up and unload a full bikie pack, [music] colors and all, who ran up the sand to their motorcycles and rode off. The magazine guessed some of those people were still
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wondering what they'd seen. I'd love to know what those swimmers told everybody at home that night.
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Harbutt said the film was his message from those who ride to those who don't.
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He wanted to educate, as he put it, Mr. and Mrs. Average. [music] The magazine that interviewed him added a dry note of its own, that with Crusade films, the people most likely to be educated are usually the people least
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likely to go and see them. [music] So, look at what that means. The union thought Stone would make motorcycling look bad. [music] Harbutt thought it would help ordinary people understand why anyone rode. And AMCN says the very first 6-hour put a
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positive spin on motorcycling. So, the club at Amaroo, the union, and the bikie filmmaker were all fighting over the same thing, which was what the rest of Australia thought of a rider. Stone came out in June 1974, and it went on to gross $1.57 million in
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Australia. So, the outlaw picture hit the cinemas in the record year for sales, and within months, the number that mattered most to the whole industry started going the wrong way.
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics also adds the registrations up by financial year, and those figures show the slide didn't stop at 1977.
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Year after year, it kept going. By the 12 months to June 1979, Australians registered 37,278 new motorcycles, and that count leaves out trail bikes registered only for recreation. That's less than half of what they bought 5 years before. The
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Bureau's figures show something else, too. Between the end of 1976 and the middle of 1979, the number of motorcycles on the national register actually went down. So, Australia had fewer bikes on the road at the end of the decade than it had a couple of years
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earlier. [music] So, why did Australians stop buying? When Parliament asked in 1978, the committee wrote down one explanation it had been given. The high unemployment amongst the age group that buys the majority of motorcycles. I want to be
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honest with you about that line in the report. It's the explanation the committee was told, and I couldn't find anything stronger for those first years of the fall.
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[music] It does fit the young buyers in the showrooms, and the drop started before New South Wales or Victoria brought in their learner limits. So, those rules can't be what started it.
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If you're enjoying this, hit subscribe. [music] This channel digs up exactly these stories, the real history behind the famous ones. By June 1978, that federal inquiry had finished counting. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Road Safety tabled a report called
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Motorcycle and Bicycle Safety, and it lays the whole boom out in numbers. In 1966, there were 69,000 motorcycles on the register in Australia. 10 years later, there were 291,600.
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And motorcyclist casualties, the committee said, had risen at a rate unmatched by any other kind of road user. But, here's the part of the report I think matters most. When the committee worked out casualties for every 10,000 registered motorcycles, the rate hadn't
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gone up at all. It had fallen 13% over the same 10 years. So, the danger per bike was actually going down, and the casualties were rising because there were so many more bikes on the road and so many more new riders on them. The
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committee's own words were that the rising casualties had been a function of the boom in motorcycle popularity. And it was clear about who those new riders were.
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[music] In New South Wales in 1975, of the 159 motorcyclists killed whose age was known, 129 were under 25. And the committee thought its own figures undercounted the problem. Pillion passengers weren't included in the motorcyclist figures at all, and
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off-road riders weren't counted, either. One major hospital in rural Victoria reported that 40% of the motorcyclists it treated had been hurt on farms and trails. Using Victorian figures, the report showed that per kilometer traveled, a rider was 16 times more
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likely to become a road accident casualty than someone in a car. [music] The committee didn't let riders off on drinking, either. It looked at six Australian studies of riders who'd been killed, and in the five that recorded blood alcohol levels, 92% of the dead
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riders who'd been drinking were over 0.05. It was fair about it, though. One of those studies, from Victoria, found a smaller share of killed riders had been drinking than killed car drivers. And the riders with the highest risk of all,
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it said, were 25 or younger, had less than 2 years of riding behind them, and were on motorcycles over 250 cubic centimeters. So, that was the bill for the boom. Young riders with very little experience learning on big bikes.
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And getting a license asked for very little. A 2009 article in the Journal of Road Safety described the motorcycle license test before 1980 as little more than four motorcycle questions added to the car knowledge test and maybe a short
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ride while the local police officer watched. So, when the states started acting, they went after the big bikes.
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In New South Wales, from the 1st of January 1977, a graded license kept a new rider on a motorcycle under 250 cubic centimeters for their first 12 months. Western Australia and Queensland had their own schemes, and the committee pointed out
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the hole in them. Their schemes only kept you off bikes over 250 cubic centimeters if you'd sat your license test on a smaller one. So, anyone who took the test on a big bike had no restriction at all. That's a loophole
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you could ride a Kawasaki 900 through. The idea of banning big motorcycles outright was put to a number of witnesses, and the committee didn't back it.
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[music] Big bikes were often the quieter, more docile tours, it said, and some small ones were capable of very high speeds.
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So, the real problem was inexperience. It even suggested a moped as a first two-wheeler, and it noted why Australia had hardly any. It had been told that the high cost of motorcycle registration and insurance was a big part of the
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reason. The committee wanted everyone to wait for the New South Wales scheme to be evaluated. Victoria didn't wait long.
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From the beginning of 1979, Victorian learners and first-year riders were limited to under 260 cubic centimeters, and other states were bringing in 250 cubic centimeter limits of their own. Victoria's own evaluation later laid out the case. Learners and
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first-year riders had been involved in crashes about four times as often as fully licensed riders for their numbers.
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After the limit came in, their casualty rates began to fall from from middle of 1979.
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The helmets got fixed in the same rush. A A few months after the report, in November 1978, a national standard became compulsory for every motorcycle helmet sold in Australia. Before it, helmets built to old standards were still on sale. And
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when New South Wales banned them, they were just shipped to other states and sold there.
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Out at Amaroo, the race was still pulling stars. In 1977, nine-time world champion Mike Hailwood would rode the 6-hour on a Ducati. And his one condition, AMCN says, was that it had to be fun and involve plenty of partying.
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The sponsor was a brand new potato crisp called Captain Snack. Captain Snack wore a cape. The capes had to go, but the sponsorship stuck. And it covered Hailwood's expenses and two sets of yellow leathers. That same year, new
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motorcycle registrations across Australia were down to about half of what they'd been in 1974. And the riders themselves started pushing back. In 1978, the Motorcycle Riders Association was formed in Victoria with Damian Codognato as its first president. In
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Tasmania, a new no-fault insurance scheme started that year. And from 1979, each class of vehicle paid for what its own class was costing. By the riders' own account, by 1980, the insurance part of a motorcycle's registration was over
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$600 a year. Tasmanian riders formed their own branch. And their history says the government was also talking about forcing riders into day-glo vests, banning large motorcycles, and making L plates last three years. The riders' answer was training. They found police
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instructors at a local academy giving free riding advice on weekends and turned up to help. That's what the parliamentary report had found, too.
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Rider training was one of the measures most strongly supported by the people who gave evidence, the motorcycle clubs, road safety councils, and the police.
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[music] In Tasmania, the writers say, it took 3 years of protest rides before a new government promised in 1983 to tie motorcycle insurance to what cars paid.
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So, what actually survived all of this? The learner limit did. [music] By 1999, the ACT Legislative Assembly was told in debate that every other state and the Northern Territory had some form of restriction on new riders.
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In New South Wales, it lasted until 2002, when the state replaced the 250cc limit with the learner approved motorcycle scheme. And most of the country later followed. Austroads, the national road agency's body, says the reason was that 250cc race replicas,
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little bikes built to be as fast as a 250 could be, had become overrepresented in fatal and serious crashes. Victoria had seen the first hint of that back in 1984, when a study noted concern that the industry was building more powerful
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250cc bikes, though it didn't find them overrepresented in crashes yet. The showroom race got one last big compliment from a factory before the end. In 1980, Honda produced a limited run of a bike called the CB1100R, and Britain's Classic Bike magazine says
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it was apparently aimed at winning the 6-hour. It won that year, ridden by Andrew Johnson and a young Wayne Gardner, who in 1987 became Australia's first 500cc world champion.
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[music] By then, the race had moved from Amaroo to Oran Park, and 1987 was the last time it ran. In February 1988, the Willoughby club called it quits, and Castrol's press release said the race was born in an era when bikes sold over the counter
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were, in many instances, suspect. [music] That's quite a thing to say about a race whose very first winner was a Triumph with a Yamaha twist grip. [music] AMCN adds the part Castrol left out, that annual motorcycle sales had fallen below
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19,000. And Stone? [music] In 1998, more than 30,000 riders turned out for its 25th anniversary and rode the funeral run again. Harbutt died in 2020 at 79, and Stone was the only feature film he ever directed. [music] So, both things about the 1970s are
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true. The boom was real, and so was the bill. [music] And the learner limits that came out of that bill shaped how Australians started riding for more than 20 years. Of the two pictures that shared Amaroo Park in
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1973, the showroom race has been gone for almost 40 years, and the outlaw film the governing body warned its clubs about is the one riders still turn [music] out for.
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Five years after Stone, Keays-Byrne, who played Toad in the Gravediggers, led the bikie gang in Mad Max. And the real club behind those Kawasakis is the next video to watch.
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[music]
Topics:Australia1970smotorcycle boomAmaroo Parkshowroom racingStone filmKawasaki 900motorcycle safetymotorcycle marketoutlaw bikers
