Norton Atlas
Norton Atlas Background & History
The Norton Atlas was considered in its day to be a premium British motorcycle, and for a while one of the fastest production motorcycle on the planet! The Atlas was the product of decades of development and lessons learned as Norton fielded an impressive array of powerful twins, decades of experience building epic singles, and all the invaluable lessons learned through racing.
1966 Norton Atlas.
Norton's Early Days
Norton started building motorcycles in 1902, building what almost everyone else was building at the time: big singles. It’s most famous of those is the Norton Manx which was one of the most successful road racing bikes from the 1930s through the 1950s. It had one of the most advanced engine designs of its era. At a time when most other British motorcycle makers were fielding big (500cc) OHV (Overhead Valve) singles, the Manx was OHC (Overhead Cam). The Manx also had an advance frame, the legendary Featherbed Frame with swing arm rear suspension, which put them years ahead of the competition, many of whom were still running antiquated Anstey-link plunger rear suspension, or even rigid frames. Norton built a reputation through their racing program that their bikes were fast yet reliable. The reputation paid big dividends in the showroom.
The 750cc Norton Atlas was one of the hottest bikes you could buy in the 60s.
Norton Enters the Vertical Twin Race
The motorcycle landscape in the 1930s was dominated by British-made 500cc OHV singles like the BSA Gold Star, Royal Enfield Bullet, Ariel Red Hunter,Matchless G80, the Norton Manx, the Velocette MAC and the Vincent Comet.
Triumph introduced their first ‘modern’ vertical twin in the 500cc 1938 Triumph 5T Speed Twin, and most of the rest of the British motorcycle industry, those who could afford it anyway, rushed to bring their own twins to market. Norton’s entry was the 500cc 1949 Norton Model 7. Around this same time, Norton introduced the revolutionary ‘Featherbed Frame’ on the Norton Manx. It slowly spread to most of the rest of Norton’s lineup and in 1953 they dropped the 500cc Model 7 engine into the new Featherbed Frame and called it the Norton Dominator 88. In 1956 they bored and stroked the engine out to 600cc and created the Dominator 99. In 1962, Norton bored and stroked it again to 650cc, and christened it the Norton Dominator 650SS which ran through the 1969 model year. The Featherbed Frame had become the standard of the industry for high performance handling. No one else had anything as good.
The Norton Atlas 750 engine had grown from a 500 to a 600 to a 650 before the Atlas 750, and was pushed up again to an 850 before it was over.
The Engine Keeps Growing & Growing
Norton’s 500cc twin, launched in 1949, had grown substantially in displacement, and they weren’t done yet, not by a long shot. Bumped to 600cc in 1956, and again to 650cc in 1962, and again in 1962 to 750cc and created yet another new bike, the Norton 750 Atlas. The Atlas was wickedly fast, faster than anything else on the market at the time, even the reigning king, the Triumph Bonneville. The 1965 Bonneville had 46 hp. A 1965 Norton Atlas had 55! Nothing could touch the big Norton.
As an interesting side note, all Nortons use a shift pattern that is not the common one that most riders are accustomed to. Most bikes, regardless of which side of the bike they shift on, have a one-down, 3- or 4-up pattern. All Nortons have a one-up, 3-down pattern, the exact opposite. And all Nortons shift on the right side, as God intended. This is one more reason why Commando production ended with the 1975 model year. A law had passed in the US requiring all motorcycles sold in the US to have left-foot shifting starting with the 1976 model year. Triumph, already struggling just to survive, found a clever way to move the shifting over to the other side on their 750 twins, but had to completely redesign the Trident triple, which launched in 1975, it's final year, after all that effort and expense. The leadership at Norton decided that they did not have the money or the resources, or a clear way, mechanically, to switch sides with the shifter. So there were no 1976 Nortons.
Norton Atlas Leads the Way
The Atlas put Norton’s biggest engine (the 750 twin) into their best frame (the Featherbed) and the effect was dramatic. It was one of the fastest bikes on the market already and now it handled like a dream. The Atlas would serve as Norton’s premium bike until the Norton Commando was released in 1967 as a 1968 model. The Commando used the Norton Atlas’ 750 engine, but set it at an angle in the frame so that the cylinders slanted forward rather than vertically like all other Norton twins. The designers thought it would give the ancient engine a more modern look, and it really did look good. Just right. The biggest problem with the Atlas, especially when running all out, was the same one that plagued all the British bikes: vibration. At higher rpms, which were needed to get peak power out of the engine, the vibration got worse and worse until it became unbearable, for rider and machine alike. The Commando addressed that problem with another ground-breaking motorcycle frame: Isolastic Suspension. This rubber-mounted the engine package in common with the swing arm so that the vibrations never reached the frame and thus the rider. They simply worked their way out the rear wheel, via the swing arm. It was simple and brilliant in concept, not as easy to implement in reality, at least at first. But they got it right in the end.
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