On The Pegs July 2020 - Volume 5 - Issue 7 | Page 118

On The Pegs 118
IT’S HAMMER TIME
GOOD OLD TIMES BLOG
By Kenneth Olausson
Photos: Husqvarna
After the 1960 season things heated up. Rolf Tibblin finished fourth in the 500cc
championship and came fifth in the following year. Having trained harder than ever,
he had high hopes for 1962. Straddling his Husqvarna, Tibblin’s main opponents
came from Sweden, which certainly made the title chase interesting.
Rolf Tibblin won the European championship on his 250cc Husqvarna in 1959. The
following year he chose to step up the ladder and go for the big-bore 500cc class.
Tibblin already had some experience from Husky’s newcomer as he had done the
initial tests when the machine was introduced at the beginning of October, 1958.
Now he was to use the machine with number 18-61 printed into the frame. The
Husqvarna power plant had a displacement of 485cc from a bore and stroke of 79
x 99 mm. The compression ratio was measured at 10:1 and it gave a performance