Promise unfulfilled?

Though this 500cc EMC prototype offered plenty of promise, it wasn’t to be, though that didn’t stop its indefatigable maker from try, try, trying again.

Words: ALAN CATHCART

Love him or loathe him (and there were plenty who did), Dr Josef Ehrlich was a true original. Volatile but inventive, constantly coming up with new ideas and innovative designs right up until his death in September 2003 at the age of 88, the sprightly, dapper engineer universally known as ‘Dr Joe’ was involved with motorcycles all his life, ever since the early 1930s when, in between earning his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering in Austria, he competed in sand track and road races on a 250cc Puch two-stroke and OHV 500cc Sunbeam. Like so many people forming part of that vast tide of refugees from political and religious oppression which has poured into Great Britain over the past century, Joe Ehrlich was an ultra-Brit, passionately committed to keeping the Union…

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The Classic MotorCycle (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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