Announcing the Confusing Commando

Out of the crate, the first Norton Commando in America reeled off a series of low 13-sec. blasts up the quarter-mile, with terminal speeds close to, and occasionally touching 100 mph. Later a man who previously never had competed in a road race entered the same 745cc Commando in a race meeting, won his heat of the production event, placed 2nd in the Grand Prix heat, then won the Grand Prix main. He also set fast lap time of the day, beating times recorded by all the grand prix machinery, and was leading the production final when a loose spark plug blew out. What does this make the Commando? Is is a racer with a wild cam, and a rumpity-rump idle that hates delays at traffic lights? No! The Commando is simply a sports roadster that offers a sensational blend of shattering performance, well mannered tractability, racebred handling, and fierce, sure stopping power…

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"Fierce stopping power"? Must have been a very late model. That was never something the 68 model had.

I stand corrected - I just followed the link and it WAS a '68. Sure makes me wonder what the review writer had ridden before.

Hehe, maybe the Norton bunch slipped them some cash for that claim to fame,
Naw not Norton....

Yeah, tis a shame, that comment on the brakes kinda calls the rest of the enthusiastic review into question....although it's the only part of it that strikes me as questionable, actually.

7R front brake was best production G.P. brake about then . green AM4s in a Commando brake freshly set up with the vents open . . .
Being a trifle cunning it was probably the P.R. hemisphered head, and top Iso. Early P.R.s were 30 carbs and 2S cam , so yes ' Standard ' .

If young Williams put it together it would count for a lot . F-750 Triumphs took a fitter six weeks to assemble . . Hardly thrown together on a production line .
The entire work force wasnt stoned at that time . . .

We had a similar enthusiastic review of the front brake of the first Commando- tested on the "old" Nuerburgring- in the then only German motorcycle mag "Motorrad". About five years ago, my daughter's then about twenty year old boy friend- used to modern bikes- rode my '68 Fastback AFTER reading that report. He asked me what brake they were talking about- a different one? He understandably found the Fastback drum brake pretty useless. I asked him to ride other bikes from that era- BMWs, Hondas etc- and to reconsider his opinion.
One of the worst brakes of the period I ever rode was a CB750 Honda- totally wooden and absolutely useless- with BMW brakes of the period- totally soft and equally useless- a very close second.
Whilst I suppose the Norton test bike was fiddled in the American case, I doubt the German one was; the German market being of scant importance for Norton and the importers pretty amateurish at the time. See the judgement with the period bike brakes as the basis for the statement! Compared to its contemporaries the Norton had pretty powerful brakes, believe it or not.

Just a comment on the brake thing,subject to faulty old brain matter. I seem to remember that in 1967 the only production Twin Leading Shoe brakes on Brit bikes were the Commando and the Velocettes. Although they were feeble compared to the later disc brakes and by modern standards would fade dramatically and quickly, they were briefly the best stock brake fitted to the popular Brit models. I thought I could outbrake nearly anything until I drove a "Black Bomber" but it was "only" a 450 Honda.

Hi Group
The story that I have heard about the Cycle World Commando is that Jerry Branch Worked on it before it was delivered to Cycle World. Not that that would account for the claimed brake performance.
As to the CB750 disk brake. I rode the first one in town for a short ride. What I remember is the scream from the front tire as I braked using the usual force that I would use on the R50 that I was riding at the time. Later I owned a CB450 with the same disk brake set up. Having put many miles on my CB450 I fail to understand what was wrong with the brakes for that time. Maybe that it was not English?
TomC in Ohio