Norton Motorcycles

Norton Motorcycles, Always a Game-Changer

Norton Motorcycles have a rich history of innovation, mechanical excellent and racing glory. James Lansdowne Norton began building motorcycles in 1902 using French and Swiss engines. By 1907, he was building his own and winning races with them, including the first ever Isle of Man TT. This began a racing heritage that is the stuff of legend. Today, Norton motorcycles are among the most popular, fastest, best-handling and sexiest of all classic British motorcycles. The Norton Commando (1969−1975) was considered by many to be the worldʼs first production superbike; it actually was the worldʼs fastest production motorcycle at the time of itʼs introduction in 1968 and one of the most desirable machines of all time. It represented the best that the British motorcycle industry had to offer at the time. It was a genuine game-changer. But game-changers were nothing new to Norton. Its 350 and 500 Manx singles were lightyears ahead of the competition at the time and dominated road racing for decades.

This 1949 Norton Manx had advanced featured like a twin-leading shoe front brake, a DOHC engine, tuned-exhaust megaphone and the ʻFeatherbedʼ frame. Note the exposed ‘hairpin’ valve springs.

Norton Manx Motorcycles

The Manx is a breed of cat that is born with no tail and is native to the Isle of Man, the small island off the coast of England and the scene of one of the oldest and greatest of all motorcycle races, the Manx GP. The Manx motorcycle launched in 1938 and was typical of Nortonʼs obsession with mechanical perfection, with DOHCs driven by a shaft-and-bevel-gear setup. By 1950, when most motorcycles still used rigid frames (no rear suspension), Norton Motorcycles introduced the revolutionary ‘Featherbed’ frame that set the pattern for nearly every motorcycle frame built for the next 30 years. The Featherbed (so-named because of its smooth ride) used a conventional swing arm, novel in 1950, and all-welded steel tubing, at a time when most frames were held together with heavy brazed lugs. And the frame tubes were triangulated to distribute the loads placed on the steering head and swingarm pivot, making them immensely strong and rigid, and yet light.

This 1959 Manx had shaft-driven DOHCs, with exposed ʻhairpinʼ valve springs no less, a heavily-finned all-alloy top end, a Lucas magneto and an Amal GP carb.

This lightness and rigidity caused the Manx to handle better than anything else on the road or the track in its day. This handling advantage proved pivotal in its racing career, as the Norton Manx dominated Grand Prix racing and the Isle of Man TT well into the 1960s. However, it wasnʼt just great handling of the Featherbed frame that gave the Manx its edge. They were fast, very fast. The 350cc or 500cc single-cylinder engines were DOHC at a time when most bikes still had pushrods, and some of their contemporaries were still using side-valve arrangements (flatheads). But the days of the single-cylinder Brit bike were numbered.

This 1951 Norton ES2 is a good example of Nortonʼs big street bikes of the day. A long-stroke 500cc OHV single with a cast-iron top end and plunger rear suspension. The Manx got all the good stuff.

When Big Singles Ruled the World

The British motorcycle industry in the 1930s was dominated by OHV air-cooled single-cylinder designs, all very similar in layout. Every major British brand had one, some had several. Norton Motorcycles built its first big single, the 500cc Model 18 in 1922. Over many years, they slowly expanded these engines in both displacement and output, until by the late 1930s, they had very nearly reached their physical limits at about 500cc and 30 horsepower. Any increase in either number led to excessive vibration.

Norton joined the vertical twin race in 1949 with its 500cc Model 7. This is a 1952 Norton Model 7. Note the plunger rear suspension.

The Vertical Twin is Born

In 1938, Edward Turner, legendary designer of the Ariel Square Four engine, devised a radical new approach to the vibration problem in the parallel twin, launched in the new 500cc Triumph Speed Twin. Part of its genius was that it used the same technology and tooling as Triumphʼs singles, making it easier and cheaper to produce. It used two smaller pistons rather than one large one to make up its 500cc of displacement, both rising and falling together, but firing alternately. They were much smoother than the big singles of similar displacement, and they loved to rev. It was a stroke of genius and it revolutionised the motorcycle industry overnight. Alas, World War II started a year later, ending production until 1946. But when civilian motorcycle production ramped back up after the war, every British manufacturer wanted their own 500cc parallel twin, including Norton. In 1949 Norton Motorcycles launched its first twin, the 500cc Model 7. Development continued unabated as it built successively larger and more powerful twin-cylinder machines, all off of this original architecture. In fact, this little 500cc twin became the basis for every motorcycle it built from the mid-1960s on, until its demise in 1975, by which time it had been pushed all the way out to 850cc.

Following the 500cc Model 7, the Dominator series stretched the little 500 to 600cc, then 650cc. This is a 650cc 1959 Norton Dominator 99. Besides the boost in power, what made the Dominator dominate was the Featherbed frame. They’re easy to spot: they have a gently-curved frame tube that runs from the swingarm pivot to the back of the tank.

Norton Dominator Motorcycles

Norton mounted the Model 7ʼs 500 twin-cylinder into the Manxʼs new Featherbed frame in 1953, and named the new bike the Dominator 88. It ran through 1963, during which time it bored it out to 600cc, creating the Dominator 99. In 1962, Norton Motorcycles punched it out again, this time to 650cc, renaming it the Dominator 650SS, which ran through 1969, overlapping Commando production by a year.

The Atlas was the next evolution in Norton twins, stretching it out still further to 750cc. It was fast and handled extremely well, as did everything that used the vaunted Featherbed. As power increased, vibration started to be a problem. This is a 1966 Norton Atlas.

Norton Atlas Motorcycles: Horsepower Wars

The race was on for bigger engines and more power. Triumph had enlarged its own 500 twin to 650cc in 1950 and was continually hopping it up further, first with the T110 Tiger in 1953, then the TR6 in 1956, and then with the legendary twin-carb Bonneville in 1959. Norton had to step up its game. So, in 1962, it bored out the engine again, this time to 750cc, juicing up the styling a bit, and the Norton Atlas was born. By this time, the vertical twin in general was also reaching its physical limits, and the Norton twin, now making 55 horsepower, was no exception. Vibration was always a factor in parallel twins, with both pistons rising and falling together, and it was only getting worse: the larger those pistons got, the more power they made and the faster the engines turned.

The ultimate evolution of the Dominator was the 650SS, still with Featherbed frame, but more power. This is a 1969 Norton Dominator 650SS.

Vibration is the Enemy!

Triumph, BSA and all the other British motorcycle manufacturers were experiencing the same vibration problems. But what to do about it? The long-term answer would have been to design completely new, totally modern engines, more like the Japanese model. But the much lower-volume Brits were perpetually strapped for cash and simply couldnʼt afford it. Finances forced Norton Motorcycles, Triumph, BSA and the rest of the Brits to make do with the engines they had. So, Norton, true to its tradition of innovation, approached the vibration problem from a totally new direction. It created yet another iconic motorcycle frame, this one with what it called ‘isolastic suspension’, which rubber mounted the engine in common with the swing arm to isolate the engineʼs vibration and channel it out the rear wheel to the road. It was brilliant and proved to be highly effective at quelling the big Nortonʼs otherwise wicked engine vibration.

The Commando mounted the engine at a forward slant to give it a more modern look. Isolastic suspension damped the vibes, allowing Norton to extract more power from the engine. And they were fast. The engine package was rubber mounted in the frame, in common with the swingarm. This is a 1971 Norton Commando Roadster.

Norton Commando Motorcycles

The new frame bequeathed a new bike, the 750cc 1969 Norton Commando, arguably Nortonʼs most famous bike, certainly its biggest commercial success. The Commando was an instant hit. It was a handsome machine, fast, powerful; it handled well, and it was smooth... very smooth. At the time of its launch, more than a full year ahead of the Honda 750 Four and the Triumph Trident, the Commando was considered to be the worldʼs fastest production motorcycle and is considered by some to be the world’s first ‘superbike’.

The Commando was a handsome brute, with loads of power, great handling and a smoothness heretofore unknown to British twins. For a brief time the Commando was known as the ‘World’s Fastest Motorcycle’. Then the Trident came out, then the Honda CB750. This is a 1972 Norton Commando Roadster with a custom Corbin seat.

Norton Commando Motorcycles in Many Flavors

The Commando came in a variety of body styles: Roadster (the standard), Fastback (styler) and Interstate (touring version). Norton seemed adept at spinning off ‘special models’ like the Production Racer and the John Player Norton (part of a cross-promotion with the famous British cigarette maker), by hanging trick bodywork on an otherwise stock Commando. It may have overreached, however, with the ‘Hi-Rider’, its hideous attempt at a factory chopper. Over the next few years, evolutionary changes were made, including punching it out again to 850cc and adding a front disc brake in 1973 and an electric starter in 1975. This, the same engine that started out life as a 500cc twin! But the extra displacement allowed the power to come on at a lower rpm, making the bike smoother and a better overall road machine. Ultimate performance was becoming irrelevant in old British bikes like the Norton and the Triumph, in the face of the onslaught of modern superbikes from Japan. You didn’t buy a Brit bike to be the fastest, so what motivated buyers to buy Nortons? Who knows, but by 1975, the company wasn’t selling enough Commandos to keep the doors open, and production ended.

The 1974−75 John Player Norton, or JPN, was a special limited-edition factory cafe racer commemorating Norton’s roadracing wins with the sponsorship of the British cigarette maker John Player. Underneath all the dressing was a stock 850 Commando. This one is a 1974 model.

The Death of the British Motorcycle Industry

Alas, the handwriting was on the wall. The entire British motorcycle industry, once the envy of the world, was a hollowed out shell of its former self by the end of the 1960s. The few left standing struggled at the edge of insolvency. A British government hostile to industry was part of the problem. Unbelievably bad management on the part of the Brits making the business decisions was another part of it, a very big part. But they were also victims of changing times. The world was turning a corner, away from cottage industries manned by artisans hand-making antiquated products in low volumes and towards the modern high-tech model typified by the Japanese. The British industry was artisan-based and very traditional. Continual improvements were made year by year to the same old designs, which were produced in the same way they had been for decades. The Japanese held no such loyalty to their past, embracing anything that would help them make more bikes, better, cheaper and faster. They literally swamped the British bike industry on a scale that the Brits could never have competed with.

Norton attempted to revive its chances during the 1980s and once again lead the way with a series of twin-rotor Wankel-powered bikes. Only a few hundred were built. Overheating problems plagued the bike from the start. This is a 1988 Norton P43 Classic Rotary.

The Last Gasp

BSA, who in 1960 was the worldʼs largest producer of motorcycles and one of the largest multi-national corporations overall, by 1972 was broke and out of business, and it owned Triumph. Norton-Villiers, the only other British company still standing, merged with BSA, who owned Triumph. BSA folded and Norton ended up with Triumph. In early 1974, Norton announced that it would be closing Triumph’s Meriden plant and moving Triumph production to Norton’s own factories in Donington, to save on costs. The Triumph workers revolted, barricaded themselves in the factory and didn’t come out until a deal was struck in 1975 to form the worker-owned Meriden Co-op. Norton itself was struggling to stay alive, but the last Norton Commando rolled off the assembly line in 1975 (although some of the unsold bikes were retitled as ’76s and ’77s). Triumph, now owned by its workers, struggled along until 1983.

This 2009 Norton 961 Commando is a totally modern bike yet instantly recognisable as a Norton Commando. Unfortunately, theyʼre built in such low numbers that you rarely see one.

Modern Norton Motorcycles

Several attempts have been made to revive the hallowed Norton name, including the stillborn 1987 Norton twin-rotor Wankel motorcycle. American Kenny Dreer bought the rights to the Commando in the 1990s, designed and hand-built new 961 Commandos in Oregon, in very small numbers. In 2006, UK businessman Stuart Garner, owner of Norton Racing Ltd, acquired the rights to the Norton Commando brand. He had a totally new bike designed from a clean sheet of paper, using modern technology but meant to be instantly recognisable as a Commando. The Norton 961 Commando launched in 2010 and is still in limited production today.