Harris Performance Products
| Limited Company | |
| Industry | Motorcycle |
| Founded | Lester Harris and Steve Harris |
| Headquarters | Hertfordshire, Hertford, England |
Key people | Lester Harris, Steve Harris, Steve Bayford |
| Products | Motorcycles and racing parts |
| Services | Consultancy |
| Parent | Royal Enfield (India) |
Harris Performance Products are a British motorcycle racing and parts manufacturer.
Background
The family-run company Harris Performance Products Limited is based in Hertford. Established in 1972 by Lester Harris and his brother Steve Harris, with a third director Stephen Bayford, the company designs, develops, manufactures and markets road and racing motorcycle chassis and components. Over 2,200 road bikes have been produced and sold from one-off specials to the Harris Magnum range. This included approximately 20 Laverda-based Magnums, amongst others. Harris motorcycles have been successful in all classes of road racing including Grand Prix, Superbike World Championship, World Championship Endurance, Isle of Man TT and top Irish road races. In 1991, Harris became one of only two companies worldwide to be licensed by Yamaha to buy factory race engines for installation in Harris designed and built chassis for the blue ribbon 500cc Grand Prix World Championship class. Harris continues to diversify and is a technical partner to the official Yamaha UK Supermoto team.[1]
They are best known for their Harris Yamaha 500 GP machines which were produced from 1992 onwards. They ran the official Suzuki factory World Superbike Team in 1996‚ 1997 and 1998. Harris Performance Products, founded by Lester and Steve Harris, is not affiliated with L.F. Harris International, which was founded by Leslie Frederick Harris, no relation.
In 2003 Harris Performance teamed up with World Championship Motorsports (WCM) to build new racing bikes under the name "Harris WCM". Royal Enfield, a subsidiary of Eicher Motors an Indian automaker company on May 11th, 2015 acquired Harris Performance for an undisclosed sum. Harris Performance had had a long standing relationship with Royal Enfield and was responsible for the chassis development of the brand's Continental GT cafe racer model.
References
- ↑ "Harris Performance Products". Archived from the original on January 30, 2009. Retrieved 2009-02-28.