The Power Choice brochure
- Thread starter Alan L
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cliffa
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Now, that is a real "Timing" cover !!
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11 A.M. , I figure. Sunny morn.Now, that is a real "Timing" cover !!
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Ash, My eyes were drawn to the two dessert/breakfast bowls and the bottle of spirit just in front of what looks like an Aerogard can! Plus of course the EH Holden sign and the Norton head near the corner.
Ash did you make that red painted vice ? I am curious as to the origins of that design of vice ,were they a class project . I bought what I thought was one at an auction from a school that had discontiued their metal work classes, turned out I had bid/won on a lot of 10 ,they were blue in colour and that same fabricated design ,have since given most away .
ashman
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To be honest the two dessert bowls the blue one is used as a ash tray and the smaller one in front is the mull bowl lol, we have big mossies here in summer so need the Aerogard and yes am a old Holden man had a hot EH ute before I got married but the kids came alone and you can guess the rest, the beer fridge is just out of the pic and always have mate around for drinks, also have music up in the shed and outside the shed under the awuining now have a snooker table and the head in the corner is for my Manxman project bike the crank is beside the head and the rest of the bits under the workbench on the self, one day I will make a start on the cafe racer project bike, its a ex race bike so not many original Manxman parts for it.
ashman
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No its a manufactured vice, I worked at a TAFE college for 31 years and was a T/A to the maintenance Fitters for 15 of those years, I aquied 15 vices from a old fitters class room workshop that was disused so I have 5 vices still and the rest I sold, 2 vices are sitting under the bench, have 2 on my work bench and one outside on my welding bench, the one in the pic is the smallest vice and has the off set jaws great for working on forks etc, the other vices I have a Dawn vices, I also have a extra large anvil outside near my welding bench, I took a redundancy from the job at TAFE and been retired for just on 8 years now and the tools I built up from my 31 years at TAFE have come in handy for building and working on my bikes, I have a lathe and Milling machine as well.
Ashley
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lcrken
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I have a pdf of that brochure, taken from the ClassicBikes site a while back, but it's too large to attach. I can't seem to find it online at this time. If you would like a copy, send me your email address, and I'll send it.
Ken
EDIT
Oops! I just noticed that LAB has already posted the link for the brochure. Don't know how I missed that. Senility, probably.
Ken
EDIT
Oops! I just noticed that LAB has already posted the link for the brochure. Don't know how I missed that. Senility, probably.
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It came as both brochure and fold out wallchart, in case anyone didn't know
lcrken
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It came as both brochure and fold out wallchart, in case anyone didn't know
Thanks. I didn't know that. The OP asked about the brochure, so I assumed that was all there was. The poster looks pretty much like an enlargement of one page of the brochure, so if one wanted it in poster format, it might be possible to print it from an edited digital image. I've printed larger formats of other Norton advertising brochure pages in the past at the local Kinkos store.
Ken
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The larger one does have a bit more info than t'other, and a few more pictures too.....
Hi,
As the OP my interest was simply that I treasured that brochure as an 18 year old in 1977. I pawed over it trying to extract every bit of information out of it and stuck it on my bedroom wall. I agonised whether to make the ‘Power Choice’ of the Norton or the Trident. I did choose the Trident and spent the next 25 years wondering whether I made the right decision, then I bought a Commando as well.
Perhaps without that brochure I would never have bought a pommie bike.
Somewhere along the line I lost the brochure but it still remains in my memory. For old times sake I just wanted to see it again. It was exactly as I remembered it. I note it shows a JPN replica, not sure they ever existed as Mk3.Now that’s the bike I really hankered for. I often wondered why Triumph didn’t make a Slippery Sam replica.
I guess if a brochure came up on eBay I would have to buy just to recapture my lost youth.
As an aside, when my wife Patricia bought her 78 T140V from Tom Burns Motorcycles in Sydney, the Bonnie brochure had the grottiest one page flyer with a photo that looked like it was taken on the garden path of someone’s very uncared for backyard. At least the Norton/ Trident brochure was a quality item.
al
As the OP my interest was simply that I treasured that brochure as an 18 year old in 1977. I pawed over it trying to extract every bit of information out of it and stuck it on my bedroom wall. I agonised whether to make the ‘Power Choice’ of the Norton or the Trident. I did choose the Trident and spent the next 25 years wondering whether I made the right decision, then I bought a Commando as well.
Perhaps without that brochure I would never have bought a pommie bike.
Somewhere along the line I lost the brochure but it still remains in my memory. For old times sake I just wanted to see it again. It was exactly as I remembered it. I note it shows a JPN replica, not sure they ever existed as Mk3.Now that’s the bike I really hankered for. I often wondered why Triumph didn’t make a Slippery Sam replica.
I guess if a brochure came up on eBay I would have to buy just to recapture my lost youth.
As an aside, when my wife Patricia bought her 78 T140V from Tom Burns Motorcycles in Sydney, the Bonnie brochure had the grottiest one page flyer with a photo that looked like it was taken on the garden path of someone’s very uncared for backyard. At least the Norton/ Trident brochure was a quality item.
al
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According to Joe Seifert of AN (member ZFD) some very early Mk3s were JPNs and shipped to the US/Canada but what happened to them is as yet unknown.
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So, after 25 years you did make the right choice.
Did I make the right choice?
Well, with a Commando, Trident and Bonnie in the stable I can always make the right choice
Seriously though, it always amazes me that three bikes that superficially share so much in common can be so different in personality. I wonder if an owner of say a contemporary Honda 750/4, Suzuki GS 750 and a Yamaha XS 750 would say the same?
I guess that deep down, because the T160 arrived during my ’formative’ teenage years that was still full of wonder and discovery and involved seemingly mind boggling amounts of money and blood sweat and tears to purchase, it is still the bike that I have most affection for. I should also note that the psychological transfer from a Honda XL175 (first bike) to the Trident was far more profound than from a Trident to a Commando,
regards
Al
Well, with a Commando, Trident and Bonnie in the stable I can always make the right choice
Seriously though, it always amazes me that three bikes that superficially share so much in common can be so different in personality. I wonder if an owner of say a contemporary Honda 750/4, Suzuki GS 750 and a Yamaha XS 750 would say the same?
I guess that deep down, because the T160 arrived during my ’formative’ teenage years that was still full of wonder and discovery and involved seemingly mind boggling amounts of money and blood sweat and tears to purchase, it is still the bike that I have most affection for. I should also note that the psychological transfer from a Honda XL175 (first bike) to the Trident was far more profound than from a Trident to a Commando,
regards
Al
ashman
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Alan I was the same when I was 17 years old and after riding my mate's 750 Commando/Featherbed for the day I was hooked, 2 weeks later I went looking to buy a new Norton Commando so my mind was already made up, all my friends were buying new Honda 750 4s at the time, I did my home work and decided on the 74 850 Roadster, at the time there was only 2 74 Commando's in Brisbane at 2 different shops and both at the same price one was the white with blue (JPN colour) and the other one at Morgan and Wackers was the black with gold PS, that's the one I went for and put a deposit on it, that's when they gave me all the brochures so I could dreull all over them and was to pic it up on Saturday morning.
Because it was old stock the 74 Commando was at the back of the show room and all the 75 M111s were in the front as well the Trident and they also had a JPN M111, I went for the 74 as it was near $500 cheaper and 45lbs lighter, total cost for me was $1999 on the road, my dad went garranteed for me as it was my first ever loan and had to get a loan for $1100, I had the rest, I told none of my mates I was buying a new Norton and they only found out when I asked my mates to drive me up to Wackers on Saturday morning their busyest day of the week, we arrived at 9am and my new Norton was sitting right beside the front door inside, I jumped out of the car right in front while my mates parked the car.
The shop was crowed with harden bikers mostly Harley owners as Wackers was also the main Harley dealership at the time, the salesman came straight over to me and while most people in the shop were there waiting to get served for part they were all look at me a skinny 17 year old and a salesman showing me over the Norton and explaining everything and how what to do to fire it up, by this time all my mates where watching in shock I think, not sure as my excitement was running high, then it was time for me to jump on had my helmet already on, I didn't even have a leather jacket just a sweat shirt, jeans and bloody gym boots well dress for the big day lol.
Well the whole shop stopped to watch this skinny kid kick start his new 850 Commando and it fired straight up and before anything I had it in gear and straight out the front door and I was off, but only been riding Honda dirt bikes since I was 15 the gear change was all new to me being on the right side and around the other way to what I was use to, nearly came to a big craunch on the Breaky Creek bridge just around the corner from Wackers, a bus stopped in front of me and I went to hit the brakes and hit the gear lever instead but lucky had time to swive around it into the left lane, sh.t that was so close, I was real careful after that and only took me a few days so get use to it, that was over 45 years ago, I still own the Norton but I followed my mate and converted it to the Featherbed frame way back in 1980, I bought the Featherbed frame off my mate in 79 off my mate Don who got me started on my British bike life, we are still good mates and some of my mates who came up to the shop that day are still around , the driver of the car that drove me up to get my new Norton was killed in a bike accident over 30 years ago just down the road from my place, I will never forget that day way back in June 76 and that brochure sits proudly on my shed wall.
Ashley
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