"Designed to Race" is the autobiography of Peter Williams, the man known to all Norton enthusiasts as the designer and racer of the Commando-based works Production Racers and, more importantly, the Formula 750 John Player Norton works racers.

The book tells us about Peter's childhood and how he got involved in motorcycle racing at an age when today's top racers already have several world champion titles under their belt. It tells the story of one of the world's best racers who was also on a mission to improve the one-track vehicle technically, and did this to an astonishing degree with a racing motorcycle propelled by a dated and, from a technical point of view, no longer competitve powerplant- and that includes the fragile gearbox! 

The book makes fascinating reading for those who want to know what Peter did for Norton, as well as for those who have been involved with Norton motorcycles and its key personell all their lives and want to hear Peter's version of that fascinating part of Norton's history.

Peter describes his sucesses and failures, and blames mostly himself for things that went wrong. The tone is very different, for example, to the book "Whatever happened to the British Motorcycle Industry" where Bert Hopwood finds fault with everybody but himself.

A very honest book that makes you like Peter if you did not like him already, and a very good read. My only disappointment is that he is perhaps too diplomatic to critizise others, with few exceptions- Dennis Poore and Donald Heather come to mind.

The book was available from us, Part# PW001, but is currently out of print.