GENTLEMAN TUNER

Neville Joseph Doyle was born at Bairnsdale, in the East Gippsland district of Victoria, in 1937. He attended a local state school and after completing High School undertook a Motor Mechanics Apprenticeship with Marshal’s Garage. In those days it was a 5-year course where one had to be competent at everything that would normally be required of a mechanic, including welding and other skills. Neville’s first bike was a BSA Bantam before upgrading to a 3T Triumph as his ride-to-work machine. His employer allowed him some of the business floor space and he began to sell Triumphs, and after his regular working hours he undertook building engines for race boats, cars and motorcycles. He tells me that this was also to his employer’s benefit as he gained additional knowledge and ability which assisted in his regular work place. This outside work included some of the locals’ road hack and scrambles Triumphs.

Neville himself raced from around 1954 to 1965 on road race circuits and scrambles and was an A grader in each sport. By 1960 Neville had a Greeves he used in Scrambles and was road racing a rigid framed Triumph. About this time he was working at an engineering business at Lindenow near Bairnsdale. He worked there until the late 1960s attending to water pumps used in local agriculture. During the 1960s he prepared race machines for the likes of Karel Morlang, Ray Fisher, Terry Veering and Ken Rumble. Neville still has the