Black and white cutaway diagram of Wooler flat four engine

The text on the pictures is as follows:-

"The 1948 500 cc Wooler four"

JOHN Wooler’s design genius was wasted on the motorcycle world. From the beginning, long before the Kaiser War, his creations had been far too original and technically advanced for the conservative motorcyclist. This could be seen in an Edwardian 350 cc twostroke single which had plunger front and rear suspension, positive charging without crankcase compression and a double-acting piston with the connecting-rods outside the horizontal cylinder. His final flat-twin design of the Twenties was not well received either (at least commercially) and could only be usefully described as an overhead-camshaft sidevalve! So Wooler kept away from motorcycles for many years but came back with this sensational transverse-four which was made into metal in time for the 1948 Show. Now the conception was two flat-twins one atop the other. But unlike George Brough’s superimposed four-cylinder “Dream,” (which had two crankshafts geared together), Wooler coupled his pistons to a single, lowslung crankshaft, using a system of connecting rods in concert with a rocking beam. It made a very narrow engine but the centre of gravity was high. Nothing commercially came of this design either and it was followed by a more conventional flat-four. The wet-sump rocking-beam motor shown here shared the Wooler gimmick of plunger suspension based on the veteran model of nearly 40 years previous. A 500 cc sidevalve, it also enjoyed the earlier pioneer ploy of standardisation on hexagon sizes so that two openended spanners sufficied for all work on the machine. Half a dozen prototypes were produced by an engineering firm who were strangers to the motorcycle world but the project did not enter production - C.E.Allen.

Copyright technical drawing by permission of "Motor Cycle" London EC4."

A super picture in a 30 x 24 cm. (12 x 10 inch) size clipframe.

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