- Joined
- Oct 1, 2018
- Messages
- 63
There Is No Gap in the Norton
The Commando was the last bike produced by the British motorcycle industry proper. And I can easily imagine the engineers at Norton -- up all night with slide rules-- desperately reworking a long obsolete design in the face of Japanese competitors who were armed with unimaginable resources.
These evolutionary pressures could have left us with a motorcycle as awkward and as ungainly as the camel. But that is not what happened.
Every so often I come across an industrial design in which not one line or detail should be changed. The Ferrari 275 GTB by Pininfarina comes to mind. And with the exception of the plastic airbox added to the MKIII, the Commando is just such a design.
As a culture we do not give credit to our metalworking as sacred art. I suppose this goes back even to the Greeks. All of the gods of Mount Olympus were physically beautiful with the single exception of Hephaestus-- the worker in metal.
But there is a reason beyond the pure aesthetic that has kept us steadfastly tinkering with our Commandos. And we are unconcerned with obsolete skinny tires and clanky pushrod engines--because the Commando has something that almost always gets lost in the headlong rush of progress.
And that something is a rare balance and integrity of design. There is no gap in the Norton : it sounds like it feels, and it feels like it looks.
Very Sincerely,
Kara
The Commando was the last bike produced by the British motorcycle industry proper. And I can easily imagine the engineers at Norton -- up all night with slide rules-- desperately reworking a long obsolete design in the face of Japanese competitors who were armed with unimaginable resources.
These evolutionary pressures could have left us with a motorcycle as awkward and as ungainly as the camel. But that is not what happened.
Every so often I come across an industrial design in which not one line or detail should be changed. The Ferrari 275 GTB by Pininfarina comes to mind. And with the exception of the plastic airbox added to the MKIII, the Commando is just such a design.
As a culture we do not give credit to our metalworking as sacred art. I suppose this goes back even to the Greeks. All of the gods of Mount Olympus were physically beautiful with the single exception of Hephaestus-- the worker in metal.
But there is a reason beyond the pure aesthetic that has kept us steadfastly tinkering with our Commandos. And we are unconcerned with obsolete skinny tires and clanky pushrod engines--because the Commando has something that almost always gets lost in the headlong rush of progress.
And that something is a rare balance and integrity of design. There is no gap in the Norton : it sounds like it feels, and it feels like it looks.
Very Sincerely,
Kara
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