Wikipedia Entry on Norton

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Say what you will about how antique they were, but Commandos were a good all around bike back around 1970. They were quick enough to put paid to almost anything stoplight to stoplight, went around corners well, and were reasonably priced. Unfortunately each year the Japanese came onto the market with something better and faster, that happens, nothing is top dog for long.
I hauled girls on dates, toured the country, raced in local scraps (until I realized the cost) , drove it to work, and now that I think of it kept it until I gave up motorcycling (never thinking I'd come back to bike riding). I really got my money's worth.
It was a real shame that all those forces conspired to keep Norton from developing and continuing to produce. Bad decisions were made on a lot of folks parts.
We have just nearly repeated the entire fiasco recently with the American auto industry, lessons seem a bit hard to absorb.
 
Ludwig, this is a site for Commando lovers so pack the cb750 loving in! I've been enjoying a convivial whisky or 2 this evening so my reply to you if we were sharing bar space would be "away and bile yet heid"
"cb750, A well engineered bike which handles like a camel and if attacked by a spanner or Allen key would most likely strip a thread due to the poor quality of the alloy. The ad campaign centred around the phrase "you meet the nicest people on a Honda" if I wanted to be nice I'd have joined a golf club"
get a grip man
 
Gino Rondelli said:
Ludwig, this is a site for Commando lovers so pack the cb750 loving in! I've been enjoying a convivial whisky or 2 this evening so my reply to you if we were sharing bar space would be "away and bile yet heid"
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Keep drinking. :mrgreen:
 
ML said:
The Meriden workes did not like it all and went on stike and locked up all of the T150 tooling. Poore had a contract with the government and had to proceed with the Trident. He paid up GPB500,000 just for a replacement set of T150 crankcase tooling. Plus a lot more duplication of processes and parts set back Norton Triumph Villiers badly.
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I agree a figure of £500,000 GBP (a fair sum in those days) was reputedly spent setting up T150 Trident production at the BSA (NVT) works in Small Heath, but as I understand it, it was the jigs, tooling and drawings for the frame and various other cycle parts that were locked away at Meriden during the workers' sit-in, so was in fact those parts which had to be re-manufactured from scratch (at times using drawings recovered from outside contractors) as the T150 Trident engines had always been made at Small Heath and then supplied to Meriden.
 
My first bike was a BSA 500 single B33. My second one was a CB500. I couldn't wait to get rid of it. My third and last was a 69S. Never looked back. The honda rode like a top heavy camel, I still can't understand why people like those bikes other than they did not need much maintenance, but that is not much to say once you have experienced a Norton.

Dave
69S
 
Could be re-written and give the link as a source, any writers in the group :?:

Jean
 
I'm a writer ("Old Bikes" - $20 incl. postage), but I'm a bit too swamped to take it on at the moment.
 
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