New Norton on BBC Working Lunch

a short segment on the company and it's products.

Might be worth catching on iPlayer
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/working_lunch/default.stm

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/guitars/video/bobbrozman/

 

lets hope there more reliable than Triumph!!!

 

Trouble is, there have been so many of these "reborn" or "new brand"
bikes over the years, and they've virtually all gone phut. Either
they've had a decent product but been under-capitalised from the start
(like Morini), or they've tried to pep up some dated old clunker of a
lump (Laverda), or they haven't actually produced a competitive
product (Hesketh).

I can't help feeling that Norton falls into all three categories, but
chiefly the second. It's an air-cooled pushrod parallel twin that
knocks out 80bhp and costs sixteen grand. Like Laverda, the money
seems to buy you top-notch suspension, brakes and ancillaries, but
that's of little use if the basic package doesn't really go or last
long. I'd be interested to know how they propose to get it through the
Euro 4 regulations, too: they're due in a couple of of years, I think.

Give Bloor his due: he knew that if Triumph was going to be a serious
player, it would need investment not in the millions, nor even the
tens of millions, but in the hundreds of millions. And it would have
to be competitive. And look at the company now.

An engine that dates back to the 1940s is not a practical base on
which to build a premium motorcycle brand in the 21st century, IMHO.

(Does look nice, thobut)

 

And all of the above have rabid owners clubs, go figure..

If it's like the 'premium' Notruns that you occasionally see in the US,
there is an old gimmer market for it. But the market is small and the
bikes are expensive, making the market even smaller.

 

Harley seem to manage ok(ish).

 

I knew someone was going to say that. There really is no relationship
between the current engines and the slobbering old sidevalves, beyond
the fact they're both 45 degree vee-twins.

(And anyway, HD are in deep shit right now, aren't they? Though that's
more due to them offering finance to sub-prime punters.)

 

They're still air-cooled push-rod engines that make a staggeringly
small amount of power. Sounds pretty 1940s to me.

Yes, hence the 'ish'.

 

Hard to argue

 

Well they have sold out the current production run of the top-spec 961SE so
there is some kind of market out there. However, I think you are probably
right about their longer-term prospects but who knows, they might manage to
make a go of it. I think they they either need to find some way to bring
the price down or establish themselves in the USA as a desirable modern
classic. At the moment the base model is £11,995 in the UK market and they
are up against some very stiff competition in that price range. In the
classic naked Brit market a Triumph bonneville SE is half that price. At
circa £12,000 in the big naked bike market they are up against the likes of
a Rocket III or Ducati Streetfighter and an air-cooled parallel twin 80bhp
bike just isn't competetive, no matter how good it looks.

 

They were bloody good motors in their day. Polishing the turd is not
going to help nowadays but they could probably get away with rolling
it in glitter so long as they can come up with some decent improvements
within a year or so.

 

Not really, no.

Polishing the turd is not

True

 

On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:11:35 +0000 (UTC), wrote:

Really? Whay did everyone want to replace them with Triumph or HRD
engines then?

 

<Bad form post>

They were good as 500s and adequate as 600s-650s. By 750cc they were
gong a bit too far, and at 828cc they were a joke. The Norton's
strength was always the chassis: first the Featherbed frame, and then
the neat Isolastic.

If the engines were that good, they wouldn't have built Tritons.

 

The merits of the Norton motor is possibly a matter of a pinion but
the number converted or built as Tritons was very small. The vast
majority of Norton owners were happy with the original.

 

GINGE!

 

Not strictly true - many people wanted a featherbed frame for their
preferred engine. The featherbed was the frame of choice in its day so not
surprising that many featherbeds ended up hosting different engines. Lots
of people bought Nortons because they wanted a Norton. Others bought old
clapped-out Nortons so that they could use the frame, hence the large numers
of Tritons etc. The Commando won the MCN bike of the year competition for 5
years running so it wasn't considered to be a bad bike in its day.

 

In communiqué

The Franco Morini Motori 87 degree 1200 V-twin is not dead quite yet,
but I'm waiting for the second hand prices to fall a lot more before I
consider giving one a try.


--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Having owned a 600 I tend to agree with you.

 

In communiqué <hfb3se$u0a$-september.org>, TMack

I could scan some AJS/Matchless OC magazine articles from the era that
would disagree (the last G15s were Norton powered). Early Commando
adopters were not always enamoured when comparing them with a 650SS or
similar. Mind you, when you consider the contemporary brit bike
competition it was up against. I was certainly greatly impressed with
the one rode briefly when I still had a 31CSR.

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+