Total commando units made??
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Cool it guys, my friend rebuilds them, not all at the same time, but he does rebuild Brits that is why he has this stash. A few years ago, the other shops were sending containers full of old bikes to Europe and guess what, now the same shops are hard up because there are no old bikes to fix and sell parts for. Whenever someone has a wreck to sell, he makes them an offer.
This winter he has a nice Atlas to build, without a good supply of parts, he would be stopped. The crankcase, crank, barrel, head, back wheel and many other small parts for my café racer came from his collection.
Jean
This winter he has a nice Atlas to build, without a good supply of parts, he would be stopped. The crankcase, crank, barrel, head, back wheel and many other small parts for my café racer came from his collection.
Jean
Madnorton said:
The registration date from the logbook on mine is...04/10/1977, I will get the engine and frame numbers when I get home at Christmas and let you know.
I know it did feature in a test in Classic Bike in the '80s, I have the mag but can't remember the month
Cheers
Robert
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79x100 said:
Errr... how come my 750 is 153495..? Any thoughts?
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Rohan said:
I don't need to having three Kawasaki H2's.
The diversion in this case relates to older motorcycles in general,many what are now deemed collectable motorcycles ended up in the back of sheds due to mild ailments,some were saved many were not.
The reality is most were treated as expendable items one way or another,how many still on the road out of 50/55000 might be a shock.
My point I guess is things have changed since the mid 1980's,there have always been as they most did for for bikes from the 20's/30's/40's and so on,all had periods where they were obtainable at very reasonable cost due to various reasons (not hip)
What of the next 10 years when Commando's are 50 years old.
In answer to the question,my Commando's will be with me until I can no longer ride motorcycles in general.
I still wouldn't mind a 16H.
Like most things they used to be 5 a penny.
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Hi, I think LAB will confirm, but no motre than 50.000 in total were built , AFAIK........
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Not according to Nick Hopkins, our (now retired) MD who was with Andover Norton from day 1. The Commandos built by Andover Norton are a common but apparently totally untrue story.
With all due respect to our previous owner Mike Jackson I have found many of his recollections far from accurate, so I doubt the 55.000 number as much as I'd doubt any other number. Anything over 50.000 is a guess, though it may well be true.
Tomos never produced complete bikes. They may have been shipped in big lumps and final assembly may have taken place in Yugoslavia for some obscure customs/policy reason, but I have yet to see a real Tomos-made Commando.
The microfilm records have gaps and become very shaky containing nothing but gaps and odds and ends in the late 750 era. I have some books that I bought years after the mircofiches were made from a source outside the factory, so have the books for the Mk3 and some information on early 850s and the odd 750s with 235xxx numbers. Again more or less accidental information that leaves large gaps.
As for survival rate I know I have more customers who own Commandos in Germany than were ever officially imported into Germany, so from a purely local viewpoint more than 100% have survived!
Seriously, I reckon about 50%+ have survived.
Joe/Andover Norton
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79x100 said:
There were lots of gaps in those numbers above.
About 2500 1968 Commandos were built. All of the P11 Rangers and 650 Mercurys were built after 128645 (128644 was the last '68 Commando, 128645 unassigned), along with a small handful of Atlases and N15s.
If one adds up the year-by-year, its probably more like the following:
1968 - around 2550
1969 - around 4700
1970 - around 7000
1971 - around 12000
1972 - around 12000
1973 - around 9000 (around 7000 850s)
1974 - around 6000
MkIII - around 10000
TOTAL 63250, give or take several thousand. Production ran pretty steady for 8 years, then in fits and spurts until sometime in 1977.
maybe 30,000 750s, 10,000 Combats, 13,000 850s, 10,000 MkIIIs
Has anybody gone through the records to see how many were actually built, and where the gaps in the numbers are? Are the records complete? Are these answerable questions?
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BillT said:
I think that's the basis for debate. The records are incomplete and what is available has been gone through. "Answerable"' probably not with confidence of accuracy.
Would like to know why you separate 750 and combat above. Might be difficult to determine the number of combats as it may well be a definition. Some consider high compression 750s with RH6 heads after 220,000 to be combats. Also are the later "detuned" 750 combat models considered combats? In my mind a combat is the hand grenade which equals shaved head, 32 mm ports, 932/19, 932/20 Amals, combat double S camshaft and 19 tooth gearbox sprocket, also first disc front brake and black cylinders. I do love mine.
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illf8ed said:
I listed the combat separately for a couple of reasons
1) It was advertised as a new variant and heavily promoted by Norton
2) The combat comprised the majority of 1972 production
3) This was the largest production year for Norton, and the 'grenade' issues with the combat were a big factor in the company's bankruptcy a few years later.
Did NVT refer to any of the later 750s as a Combat?
BillT said:
Bankruptcy was more to do with the financial wranglings and forced amalgamations and promises and non-delivery of promises by the then govnmts....
Norton Commandos were actually quite profitable, for a such a (relatively) small motorcycle maker.
If the Combats had driven them under, it wouldn't have taken another 5 years to play out...
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Rohan said:
I tend to agree. There were costs associated with the Comat that surely stressed things for a bit, but the addition of Triumph/BSA and government promises that didn't come through, along with internal mismanagement and an aging product...all together caused the end.
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Yep Brit manufacturing industry was set up for a fall by the City of London Marxist bankster experiments. Norton was selling everything it could make but was forced to join the sinking BSA/Triumph and then bankster controlled UK parlament did not lend/load/give enough funds to be succesful - just enough to see what would happen when workers given more seeming control as socialist experiment, no intention at all to make money so people could live off it. What is generally available in published books covered the moderate blood letting-sucking set backs but not the real spike through the guts. The City banksters were looking to the East after WWII and came up with no credit check $500 limit credit cards about same time as Honda came out with small clean $500 cycles and the rest is history.
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hobot said:
Wait a minute...."City banksters" caused the demise of the British motorcycle industry? In the mid 1970s the bulk of sales for this industry was in the US, so credit limits in England don' t seem to be the cause. Wasn't a lack of subsidy from the British government what accelerated the end by leaving manufacturing with insufficient capital to remain solvent? That decision based on the government's opinion this industry made poor business choices and or no hope of becoming competitive? The socialist experiment would have been to continue subsidies. What happened was quite capitalistic, a business decision to cut losses.
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