Norton at the 2015 IOM TT races

Hi,

I found a picture on the twitter account of Stuart Garner and searched the internet to find this for me new Esses motorcycle magazine.
Wrote a message on the contact form and got this answer back from David Burton. I allready ordered a copy, let's hope the Norton racing team has success at the TT races.

Here's a bit of background about Esses...

Esses is an independent motorcycle magazine that celebrates the excitement and thrill of riding motorcycles. It gets under the skin of the great riders, races, theatres, spectacles and stories in motorcycling.

Obviously, Esses is about the bikes but just as importantly, Esses is about the people – those who design, build, tweak, ride, photograph, collect, jump, race, polish and just plain own them.

Issue III, which will come out in September, will focus entirely on this year’s Isle of Man TT. The (approx) 200-page special will carry interviews with racers, crews, spectators, TT staff and residents of the island. The magazine will tell the story of the TT from various people’s perspectives. It will give an insight into the racing, bikes and teams, but it will also show what life is like on the island during the TT and what the event means to the people of the Isle of Man. Much of the content of the issue will focus on Norton at this year's TT and will carry exclusive behind-the-scenes images as well as interviews with Stuart Garner, Cameron Donald and others at Norton.

We'll be sending a writer and photographer to the TT from Thursday of practice week through to the end of race week. All that time we will have access all areas to Norton 24/7 - their paddock/garage, pits, motorhome etc. We will do a lot of social media while we are there (@essesmagazine on Twitter and Instagram) posting images and comments about what's going on in Norton's garage during practice and race week.

We will also interview lots of people while we are there - at Norton as well as TT officials and fans - to tell the story of the TT. This will be for a large format 200+ page magazine that will come out several months after the TT.

(answer by David Burton)

First glimpse of Norton Lightweight TT bike;

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/sport/tt- ... t-tt-bike/

It's a damned Kawasaki.

Give me a break. As if the Aprillia "Norton" wasn't bad enough...

grandpaul said:

It's a damned Kawasaki.

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Kawasaki dominates this class with 14 of the first 15 finishers last year using their motors. If you want to be competitive this is easiest way to do it. If they can prevent any mechanical mishaps this year on the Aprilia they're in with a shout on both bikes.

Best of luck to them.
cheers
wakeup

I can't see the point..!! It IS a Kawasaki and as a Norton supporter/fan, it does nothing for me. The same with the Aprilia, it's not a Norton and I can't see how it promotes anything that Norton make or do. It's just a waste of money when they should be using that cash to rectify the faults with the bikes they make, and develop new ones.

Reportedly they have sponsor(s) that will seperately fund the racing projects, so its not for general manufacturing finance,
nor taking funds from manufacturing.

And, having competitive race engines served up on a plate gives them the opportunity to explore the chassis side of things,
equally important in good motorcycling design. And race prepping a bike ??

Lets not forget either that Nortons back in the early days began with imported (French) engines mostly.
If you don't have anything of your own, begin with the best that can be bought ?
Nortons finished 1st in the twin cylinder class of the 1907 TT, using Peugeot v-twin engines.
And on the sales success that this brought them, could fund them going on to build their own engine design(s) a few years later.

Also they have a presence at one of the largest motorcycle events in the world. Last year they were showing off the new Domiracer right next to the race bike in the paddock. They also had a tent were all kinds of memorabilia in the concession area. If you want to get your name out there and gain new fans/customers this is the way to do it.

grandpaul said:

It's a damned Kawasaki.

Give me a break. As if the Aprillia "Norton" wasn't bad enough...

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I will not argue with anybody with it claiming the right to be called a Norton, the same thing has happened in the four wheeled F1 brigade, where the Mercedes F1 came from nowhere in 2010 where the engines where made by Ilmor Engineering.
Ilmor Engineering was formerly owned by Roger Penske;
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/i ... 340AAQtV1f

Heck, I can remember a 3 cylinder 2 stroke boat engine racing in G.Ps in both 2 & 3 wheels –it would have turned Norton bike owners both alive and dead in their graves if someone had stuck a Norton tank badge on their bike :!:

Bernhard said:

I will not argue with anybody with it claiming the right to be called a Norton, the same thing has happened in the four wheeled F1 brigade, where the Mercedes F1 came from nowhere in 2010 where the engines where made by Ilmor Engineering.

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Mercs bought into Ilmor Engines, quite some years back now ?
They were the most promising thing to appear for quite some time (back then), but kept exploding.
Owning them injected some serious $$, which solved the problems.
Mercs then pulled out of F1 racing for a while, but (obviously) the development continued.

British Motorcycling was built largely on bought-in engines, until quite recently.
The French supplied quite a variety in the early years of the 20th Century.
And then Villiers, JAP, Precision, Python (Rudge), Sturmey Archer (Raleight) Blumens, Anzani, etc etc etc supplied millions of the blighters to a whole slew of britis (and continental) manufactuers.
Only the big few built their own engines - and for most, ALL the casting and much of the machining was done by outside firms.

So why are we now getting all holy about an own built engine. ??

Because since the days when Norton and many other manufacturers didn't make engines, Norton have made complete bikes, and good bikes too, hence we're all here. If I was into Kawasaki's or Aprilia's I'd be on a different forum.

Perhaps you didn't notice that the british motorcycle industry has turned to ashes since then.

We are witnessing the rebirth. Or is that renaissance.
Although Triumphs seem to have had a better business plan ?,
even if most of the manufacturing has moved offshore,
and the product very little connection with what has gone before.

Good Luck to em, say I....

It's sometimes forgotten that the engine is only one part, albeit an important part, of the whole. Hopefully, fingers crossed, the various New Norton racing efforts have been using the data that they will have collected to make the handling, steering, stability aspects of their bikes, both road and race, better.

Even the JPN/Cosworth effort was an outside design, admittedly commissioned by Nortons, but you only have to look at the motor/gearbox lump to see that it wasn't designed by a motorcyclist.

Once again, with feeling, all the best to them I say.
cheers
wakeup

I've changed my view on this. The original Norton Company did well with "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" but they had some very well developed and reliable products available for consumers. From reading on the 961 Forum, the 961 has some issues, the parts supply has issues and even the most optimistic and forgiving owners are getting weary of the problems. Even simple problems seem to keep bikes in the shop for weeks and months waiting for parts.

Garner needs to forget the dazzle of the IOM and get things sorted with the 961s, otherwise, hate to say it, the whole plan will fall apart. Sales have been strong but I see a few bikes around here that are unsold, including a substantially marked down new 2013SE that has been available for more than a year.

Glen

worntorn said:

Garner needs to forget the dazzle of the IOM

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With a separate source of funding for IoM TT appearances and racing, its probably a welcome relief to get out of the shop sorting the production-on-a-shoestring-problems, and doing some real motorcycling/racing/PR work.

Nortons almost ALWAYS had a separate race shop, and quite early on the racing and production bikes divided such that race bikes were near unrelated to the road bikes - try buying a dohc 1930s road bike, or finding anything remotely like it in the catalog. Let alone into the 1950s.
(At least a (favoured) few could buy something like it for racing, via the customer manxes).
The PR proddy racing Commando wasn't exactly like the JPN Factory racers either.
And the JPN cafe road bike was not entirely/remotely a racer either.

So, the racing image was everything - Nortons lived for racing, the IoM TT especially.
Maybe Mr Garners version is a little starved for funds, and results, but its early days yet.
At least their hearts are in the right place...

If there is such a benefit to racing, and there is someone willing to fund it, WHY NOT RACE A 961?

There is your answer to any reply to the original criticism of Norton having anything to do with racing while they either aren't delivering bikes to paid customers, and aren't fixing warranty problems in less than several months for things that should take 2 days to fix.

Besides, unless the chassis they are race testing will accommodate 961 engines, what is the point?

That last comment said, maybe Norton intends to either pattern after, or re-bage Aprillias or Kawasakis. If THAT is the case, then my only criticism is with the entire 961 operation still not delivering to clients after YEARS of taking their money, and with taking WAY too long to fix warranty problems while owners miss entire riding seasons.

grandpaul said:

If there is such a benefit to racing, and there is someone willing to fund it, WHY NOT RACE A 961?

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The answer, of course, is that a longstroke pushrod twin doesn't put out the 200 or 250 bhp required to be even faintly competitive.

And, like the Norton factory race effort before, maybe the whole purpose of the exercise was to go racing. (?).
It was said that Nortons built road bikes only to go road racing, all through the decades.

Clearly the building-bikes-on-a-shoestring model doesn't work too well, but they are doing the best they can.
As the old saying goes
Q. How do you make a small fortune out of building motorcycles
A. Invest a large fortune in it.

Rohan said:

... a longstroke pushrod twin doesn't put out the 200 or 250 bhp required to be even faintly competitive.

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Competitive with what? Other long stroke pushrod twins?

It's a very un-funny joke, this whole Norton-going-racing-when-they're-not-delivering-bikes-to-paid-customers thing.

Is that still going on though ?
There is a new one looking for an owner near me, and worntorn mentioned an unsold one near him.

The development program being done by oners may be another thing.
But its not like Norton Villiers didn't do that with customers, decades back....
"lets get em out the door, and let the customers find any problems"

Not that other makers don't do that either.
Aprilia had a problem with the rods in that V4 thingy.
Fuel injections have all gone through that stage, for pretty much every maker ??
etc etc etc....

Since the horse is not dead, and I can't ride it, may as well keep beating on it.

As long as depositors are still waiting for bikes, and owners are still waiting WAY too long to get their bikes back from the shop, the beatings will continue.

I keep hearing all the "well, this and that" reasons; by this time, and with this much money spent, the bloody thing should be AT LEAST as well sorted as the first new Triumphs were at this stage. After all, they are only focusing on ONE MODEL (with slightly different trimmings)