10 reasons why this Norton is the ultimate vertical twin

It's a Parallel twin, that used to be vertical before the Commando.

Wow , is that ever a biased fanboy piece of prose, it looks like a someone in elementary school wrote it. Anyone with half a brain could make a similar list and set of arguments for any motorcycle ever made, or any vacuum sweeper.

Come on! Yellow? Gimmy a brake. 9 out of 10 ain't bad.

beng said:

Wow , is that ever a biased fanboy piece of prose, it looks like a someone in elementary school wrote it. Anyone with half a brain could make a similar list and set of arguments for any motorcycle ever made, or any vacuum sweeper.

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Or a "friend" of the auction company!

The Triumph unit T100 was the ultimate British parallel twin.

1. It was not stretched beyond it's design limits by marketers and businessmen, so it did not vibrate like a paint shaker and did not need a compromised rubber insulated chassis that added weight and cost and complexity.

2. It did not come close to lap records, it set them. Winning the Daytona 200 three times in the 60s and coming very close other years. It also won countless other dirt-track and road race events including the AMA grand national championship a few times with Gary Nixon riding.

3. It does not need a list of 10 shitty reasons to convince anyone what it is, the history books and facts speak for themselves to anyone able to read them.

I can't disagree about what you say about the T100 - a well balanced machine, and a winner.

What about the 500cc Domiracer, as developed by Doug Hele?
But for Norton's financial failings in the 1960s, perhaps we'd have seen more Norton vs Triumph duels at Daytona.
If only . . . .
In the end, at least on AMA dirt tracks, and in the 750cc class, Nortons seemed to trump the other British twins.

Still, Triumph did do it in 500cc AMA roadracing, Norton did not.

Did anyone see what price that eventually sold for ?

I have seen a number of places the Commando nominated as one of the best BRITISH bike engines ever made - the 850 models in particular.
The lovely strong torquey motor - 52 ft/lbs of it - puts it in the league of the best older vtwins.
Top gear performance of 15 to 115 mph, similar to the Vincent of old - with more modern handling and brakes
(1970s, relatively speaking)(with the right gearbox sprocket).
Plenty of more recently built twins can't even emulate that strong torquey feel.... ?
Until you have ridden an 850, (or maybe a big HD) you probably haven't even experienced anything like it.

I believe it is 56 ft. Lbs for the 850, according to the Big White Book with the blue logo.
In any case, lots of torque everywhere.

Glen

10. The generous suspension travel gave the Production Racer a soft ride almost unknown among racers of the day, allowing the rider to concentrate on racing rather than just staying aboard. At long tracks notably the Isle of Man—the fatigue-reducing aspects of the Commando played a decisive role.

Hehe they recognize it ain't just the engine that put Commando at top of the heap for me. The contests on Peel in public went rather further and longer than most race events, similar speeds in tights and length as IOM and fatigue errors came into the equation, for all the others but not for me exhilarated but strangely refreshed. I had 3+ yrs on my SV650 trying similar prior to Peel and would be half worn out just on commutes for 20 miles. Then the twitches and jitters seen on the IOM elites would set in on race like rides which sucked the rest of my reserves of adrenalin out instead of pumping it up. On moderns its about impossible to feel the quantum level tire patch interaction from the buzz of engine through the rigid frames. So they reach unpredictable statestof surprise so pilots use most effort to fight it just short of crashing all the time, sheeze. Not fun for me.

Thank you Steve for actually seeing that the link was about the Norton Production Racer.

Being some form of auction I'm sure if the next bike up is a Sunbeam S7 Deluxe Daytona it will get the same descriptive treatment.
To live in the past you need a future.

Time Warp said:

Thank you Steve for actually seeing that the link was about the Norton Production Racer.

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6 out of the 10 reasons are taken directly from the 10 reasons why a Commando was the best brit bike ever built ?

wondering if that ones this one , as some idiot gave him some pipes like those , as someone didnt want to remove the side stand bracket to clear them .



the KICKSTART LEVER is nice and clear , in the shiney top picture . Lower is a 72 , 5-speed , 32 mm carbs .

Peel sure ain't best dirt bike ever was or will be, just well able to tackle what most of em do and could race with em in a lot of places even if not win a race like that. Off road is the main thing that excites me as bike and pilot tester no one ever fully conquers but Ms Peel has totally solved pavement behavior so need 3x's more POW to get some thrill out of that anymore. Two things I want to learn better right off on Peel is the sideways locked brake stopping and the U turns done by sliding rear up and around over head at top out on Mt sides to beat gravity back down. Still the most deep and lasting impression of a Commando to me even Peel is how comfortable and isolating they are, or rather can be with some hobot spiff ups. Most of off roading abiltiy is the tires used then the suspension-clearnace then the power band then the pilot then pure luck.

I keep watching various hill climbs picturing how Peel do em for practice to take on a frends drive way that freaks me out every time both up and then down in washout surfaces that turns and banked wrong and open close gate in the middle. 4wd can do it at a grinding crawl as faster bounces off track but no way can a single tire patch get it w/o getting on it ahead of time...

xbacksideslider said:

I can't disagree about what you say about the T100 - a well balanced machine, and a winner.
What about the 500cc Domiracer, as developed by Doug Hele?

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In an interview Doug Hele said the T100 was his favorite bike, after Norton was flushed down the toilet at the end of 1962 Hele went to Triumph and developed the T100 racers for Triumph. I am sure his experience developing the Norton 88 racers helped him with that.

Triumph had a huge advantage in the USA in the 60s in production, advertising and financing, and in political influence, despite this the Norton 88 and Manx did really well, you just have to dig to find the information.

In 1962 there were two Daytona races, one sanctioned by the USMC in February and the other by the AMA in March. The USMC was a fledgling racing organization trying to bring international championship style racing to the USA, this threatened the old AMA sanctioning body and the AMA put out a negative propaganda campaign against it along with everything else it could do to undermine it, like ban riders participating in it from running in their races.

Despite this the USMC Daytona was held and with riders from Japan, England, Canada and the USA participating on FIM legal machinery. Kunimitsu Takahashi won the race on a works Honda, Norton came in the next three places.

In the 1962 AMA Daytona 200 the USA Norton distributor entered two new Daytona 88 racers with non-celebrity riders which came in 31st and 45th out of 96 entries, so an above average performance. Triumph had 16 bikes in this race some of them with top talent in the saddle, BMW had one entry, Matchless had 4, BSA had 23 bikes, Harley had 49 of it's 750cc twins.
In 1963 one of Berliner's Daytona 88 racers won the Canadian Grand Prix outright against a lot of top talent and machines from North America, they also had some success in a few AMA races, enough to use it as publicity in some magazine ads.
1n 1964 Berliner got some top talent to ride it's collection of several 88 racers at Daytona including Albert Gunter, Dick Mann, Kenny Hayes and Frank Scurria. They got two out of the top ten places in the 200 mile race and 1st and second in the 100 mile race, not bad. After 1964 the Norton 88 racers went back to minor league financing and more obscure riders, still getting oddball wins and championships here and there and eventually fading out with the rest of the 4-strokes in the face of the Yamaha twins.
To show how shoestring Berliners Norton racing effort generally was, one rider named Ray Hempstead who was a strong privateer got some rides on Berliner Norton 88s in 1965 and 66' for the Daytona races. He did not like how poorly his Norton was running during qualifying, so he got the engine out of his Norton 88 street bike and swapped it in himself, and used it to get a very high finish in the 100 mile race that year. I hoped the Berliner's thanked him....

Thanks for that, Beng. Good review of Dominator racing history in the U.S.