Norton trouble

Eljahara said:
View attachment 14356 [/ATTACH]
Hi Ray,
Yes I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of riding the bike, the conversations at bike meets etc. I do regret trading but had some issues related to the electronics which eventually compromised safety - they fixed it by replacing the ECU around June/July last year but I had lost confidence in the safety of the bike and was riding less so it made sense to trade.
Unlike others I do not have the skills to fix it myself so the option was no option really.
It was a mark 2 anniversary model
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John, That looks like Frinton & Clacton. Am I right?


Cheers,

cliffa.
 
BritTwit said:
Hopefully someone from the company will provide us with a list of suppliers that Norton used for various component parts.
Like lifters, rockers, towers, rods, etc.
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I'm sure that the suppliers are not fools, once the dust settles there would be those that want to support and supply parts.... and get paid !! :p
 
ZFD said:
When the news first came out our Stu was to save Norton and build it up to a size never seen before the press was too dazzled by his firework (oooops!) of announcements they gladly forgot to have a look into Companies House records and to see the long list of all the companies that had already been burnt down by this bright spark (ooops again!) and gone bankrupt.

He who takes the trouble, does not believe what he reads in MCN, in subserviant club magazines blinded by backward-orientated patriotism and belief in miracles concerning their subject matter, or in the rose-tinted worldwide distributed articles of a certain racing journo, can normally form an opinion through readily available background information on the net.

My eye-opener was a personal encounter well before that. But not everybody had the privilege(?), and some came to the wrong conclusions through it, blinded by a smokescreen of words and fake enthusiasm. I had an old hand in the Norton game admit to me he sat next to SG at some do and was practically drunk on the conversation when he left. Until he got home and mulled it all over, compared it to his lifelong experience in the industry and came to the conclusion he had been had by a load of b.s.
Click to expand...

If you knew all this then why didn't you at least let everyone know on this site and the Norton Owners club site, it might have saved some people a lot of anguish, never mind money ?
 
If you looked at the NOC forum before the posts were deleted the doubts about Stuart Garner were made, but the NOC committee decided to side with SG and the posts were deleted.
 
I had several posts deleted when I dared to bring up the impending disaster from the NOC site, I also had warnings about posting negative stuff from the committee. The NOC were firmly on side until it appeared in the news. Emperors new clothes!!
 
trident sam said:
If you knew all this then why didn't you at least let everyone know on this site and the Norton Owners club site, it might have saved some people a lot of anguish, never mind money ?
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I have made my opinion of Mr.G. known to all and sundry but also found, as a member of the NOC at the time, that posts critical of the great new hope for the rebirth of the British motorcycle industry (no, not Triumph, stupid!) were deleted about as fast as one could type & post them.
I also have at least four letters I sent to the editor of Roadholder in the last few years, none of which was ever printed.
All Norton enthusiasts seemed to be in a trance and reacted allergic to anybody destroying their dreams. As I said before he saw us, Andover Norton and myself, as a threat and even posted a nasty commentary on our facebook page.
He told lies about us and our licence contract he inherited from Dreer/Curme/Norton America whom I still see as the only honest party in the Norton game in the last 3 decades and who were, tellingly, ignored by the worthies in the UK because they weren't "English".
The same worthies then lapped up all the lies Garner told them, then repeated them to me with rolling eyes: "He will terminate your licence!" "He will bankrupt you!" "He says he will ruin you and take your company over!", happily ignoring that Garners empire was clearly doomed in 2008, when he was director of 11 companies, 9 went bust and the assets of what he left were less than ¼ million.
I did look him up and tell people but half didn't want to know, the other half was afraid of being taken to court for libel. Also happily ignoring Andover Norton was well-funded by my family and always profitable as opposed to a far more imposing empire in Downington Fall with an array of Aston Martins all funded, unkowingly and unwillingly, by British OAPs as an "investment".
 
OK Fair enough.
Seems to me that the NOC committee members need to be replaced.

I reiterate my thoughts about not trusting Garner myself but I didn't know why, and should have trusted my hunch. I was one of the lucky ones and got a trouble free bike, although I've since sold it and got a mate for my old Mk.3
 
Not a dead on accurate article but I guess close enough.

Oddly enough, regardless of the expense, headaches, acid in the esophagus, anger...….I feel fortunate to have one. All that crap that came with it, and I still love it.
 
kommando said:
If you looked at the NOC forum before the posts were deleted the doubts about Stuart Garner were made, but the NOC committee decided to side with SG and the posts were deleted.
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Dunno much about NOC but sounds like a swamp.
 
"KPMG's study of official insolvency notices posted in the London Gazette reveals that a total of 1,403 [UK] companies went into administration during 2019."

That's about 5-6 on each business day of the year. It happens. A lot. There used to be an old saying that 80% of businesses fail in the first year.

Currently in the US, a company that operates 40 wedding venues in 20 US states just went into bankruptcy (US equivalent of administration). 7,500 wedding couples had paid for (deposits or in-full) upcoming weddings, and said to be each losing "thousands and thousands". If you conservatively estimate each couple had $4,000 paid in (just a wild guess), there's about $30million in losses to those upcoming newlyweds.

Whether that wedding venue company committed any crime or fraudulent activity is yet to be seen, but stuff like that (and Norton) happens all the time where customers and vendors get shafted.

Having owned a business that provided services to other businesses for over 3 decades, I've seen my share of client companies go 'belly-up', and then having to pursue restitution through bankruptcy courts. It's what keeps bankruptcy attorneys in business.

I'm not quite sure why there is such hysteria over this with Norton. Perhaps it just doesn't faze me as much (bad and/or corrupt business decisions). Though yes, I do feel badly for the customers and vendors who are losing out in this.
 
Aside from the pain of financial loss, the hysteria over the bankruptcy and alleged fraud is the damage to the Norton brand which most of
us hold dear.
 
Bernhard said:
Well sweet. DY K. S G failed to turn up at the pensions Ombudsman hearing today Thus 13th? Why?............
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Why would he, more than likely he thinks he has done no wrong and is a victim.

Do you think Hitler or Stalin thought themselves egotistical maniac's.

I am willing to bet someone told/advised Garner long ago and ongoing, we can trade out of this.
He is either a deluded conman or just plain deluded and is not the first or last.
#

Future parts supply for these bikes in general will be no problem because the best motorcycle business is not selling motorcycles but parts for them.
Will the Norton come back as a ChinaBike is to be seen.

Condolences to those who have experienced the negative side of this whole affair.
 
It would have been interesting to have been a fly in the wall at the Metro Bank meetings to see why they decided to pull the plug when they did. Maybe they were tipped off at some of the practices reported of stripping parts from owners bikes to get other bikes looking finished in order to get balance payments or maybe they just didn't believe in the evolving business plan.

I never met SG or SS but my gut feeling is that I do not believe that there was ever any intention to commit fraud, I believe there was good intention their to build the brand with the newer models and make everything right. The initial 961's and even the later 961's had their issues but I have always been dealt very fairly and all warantee issues were sorted, right up until the day of admin.

Who knows, with a bit of extra time, could they have got the Atlas moving, got money in from China, India and Japan and made the company a success, thus making the loans repayable and the pension money a good investment. Some obvious mistakes in hindsight was the expediture on the big country estate and TT racing, or was that essential to build the brand up again. The six Astons were definately excess to the extreme. The stripping down of bikes to get money was the last resort to try and keep the whole thing afloat, I wonder if we would have ever known about that (as bad as it was) if some more time was given.

More info will come out in due course I am sure, current owners are concerned about thier own investments in thier bikes but all of us are I am sure feel deeply for pension holders involved in the demise as well as folks that put deposits down and made full payments towards bikes they may never get.

Many are very angry right now with what has transpired, but my gut feeling as I say was that they were not doing this as a con, but just got it wrong and made very foolish decisions that will come back to haunt them in the coming months.
 
acadian said:
Likely advised by his council not to appear. Unless a subpoena is issued nobody is likely to hear from him in the near future:

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...es-owner-fails-to-show-up-at-pensions-hearing
Click to expand...

IMHO it's time the SFO got involved and brought SG before a High Court Judge, he/ she will have powers to put SG under an arrest warrant if he fails to turn up in court, surely they have found some evidence to bring a charge of some description against him?
 

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