Triples Who's Who

Triples Who's Who
Honorary Members & Famous Faces

Les Williams

As a Triple owner and TR3OC member it is difficult to hold a conversation without the name Les Williams coming into it somewhere. It may be standard road bikes or special race prepared machines, but one thing is for sure Les`s name will come up.

As a young man Les had made links to the Triumph factory while servicing the Triumph twins ridden by the Royal Signals motorcycle display team, in 1955 Les joined the Triumph service department after his 3 years duty in the Army. A vacancy came up in the Meriden experimental department, which led to a career as race mechanic and team leader. Les and his small team overcame the opposition of other internal departments to eventually make a successful venture of the racing side of Triumph, once seen as unpopular within the company.

Les went on to manage many successes with riders such as Ray Pickrell, Alex George, Percy Tait and many more, most famously remembered by Slippery Sam's five consecutive Production TT wins between 1971 and 1975. But it must be remembered that working as a race team foreman in the early 1970s did not have the wage structure that such a job would command today, so when the factory pulled out of racing in 1972 it was little short of a miracle that Les had the Ł300 required to buy the machine christened at the 1970 Bol d`Or 'Slippery Sam' after an air lock in the oil return ensured Steve Jolly and Percy Tait were externally lubricated. Les has said many times that he bought the bike because he was "So annoyed we had stopped racing" Typical Les.

After the closure of NVT development shop at Kitts Green Les found himself out of work, after working freelance building up Tridents for the Saudi Police force, it was suggested he build Slippery Sam replicas for the road, and from these beginnings L.P Williams came about. The business prospered, and many obsolete parts were re-manufactured along with the procurement of all the spares required to keep the bikes on the road under the watchful eye of Les and this continues to this day in the hands of Trevor Gleadall.

A passion for Triples remains with Les not only as President of the TR3OC but recently rebuilding the Quadrant with Arthur Jakeman and Jack Shemans, which was finished in time to be ridden at Beezumph 11. Even in retirement he has been working full time on the restoration of Slippery Sam and the other Works racing Triples, so tragically damaged during the National Motorcycle Museum fire of 2003.

'Friendly and approachable' sums Les up and be prepared for some of his dry wit and jokes from the great days of racing with Ray, Percy and the like, plus the stories and anecdotes of the days when the Triples ruled.
John Atkins

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Ron Barrett