The Story Of The Motobirds
Meet Britain's first all-girl motorcycle stunt team, The Motobirds.
INSPIRATION
Over the last year of lockdown, the closest thing to “wild” we can think of is having a glass of wine on a Tuesday. Can you imagine if jumping through a flaming hoop of fire was considered everyday training?
The MotoBirds were the first all female stunt display team formed in Leicester in the 1970s made up of a team of brilliant, confident women. Despite wearing no helmets or safety gear, the girls were fearless in what they did, performing a whole range of “death defying” stunts right before your eyes. They continued to stun audiences on tours and television sets all around the country, defying any gender stereotypes at that time. So how did this idea come about? The Motobirds were born out of the desire to stand out from the norm and be different.
Theresa, one of the starting members of the group, used to be in a stunt performing group with six other men as the only female. After outstandingly performing the most daring stunts in these shows, it was thought of to do something a bit different to what was on the market and to start the world first all female stunt group, something completely out of the ordinary at the time.
But Teresa wasn't a one woman band. Over the 1970’s the Motobirds went from strength to strength, starting at a three person team, to six, then to a whole troop of stunt performing women! Mary Conners (now Western-Web), another Motobird stund Hero, spoke about how they recruited for the team stating that a simple advertisement seeking women to ride motorcycles and “no experience necessary” was all the information that they saw. She even thought that it was an advertisement for a pizza delivery service not flame stunts! (talk about flaming hot!)
Through rigorous motorbike training to (somewhat) fire safety, the women were thought to perform all kinds of stunts within weeks of becoming team members, often wearing very little more than a bikini and a skirt! These ranged from jumping through hoops of fire, smashing through panels of glass, jumping out of cannons as well as jumping over rows of cars and in some cases audience members (very brave!).
The woman went on to be a huge success over the years, understandable attracting huge crowds around the country. Theresa also went to achieve the world record for riding a motorcycle though the longest tunnel of fire! These women undoubtable went on to pave the way for other female stunt performers and here at Little Black Pistol we are in awe of the teamwork, fearless attitudes and boss-like characters taken by them all!
