Gents,
I’ve often looked for info on this forum, but I’ve never posted. I’ve never been a forum poster I guess. This particular thread has been so good that I finally registered just to say ‘Hi’.
I own one of these early bikes too, from memory it’s 1322**. I’m not by the bike right now, but will happily find those remaining two digits when I am.
Dave, your resto has been interesting. Cory, I’ve enjoyed your site too.
Previously I covered a lot of miles on a ’72 Roadster. Then I owned a bunch of other Brit bikes, which were never as rewarding as the Norton. So finally picked up a low mileage original ’70. That early 750 motor was so much sweeter and free revving, and with those clean looks -I fell in love.
This bike had the headlight ‘Halo’ and all the other early model stuff, with the small black taillight. It wasn’t long before I started thinking I’d accidentally bought an ‘S’ type, but it was one of those early Roadsters. Now I know how much confusion the first Roadsters cause, and I see many people turn them into S types, because they also think that’s what they’ve got. A shame really, as they’re just as special -and rare.
Anyway, I emigrated, left that bike in storage for 3 years before begrudgingly selling it, and immediately regretted it. Since then I spent 2 more years trying to replace it. Thankfully, I finally stumbled on my current ’69. As I said, it’s a 1322** (something or other) frame/engine/gearbox number bike. The headstock plate is still there and I know it says it was built June ’69, in London. It has the silver metal flake taillight and while the bike looked like a right ugly mongrel when I got it, most of the rare original stuff was still in place. Under some fugly paint was the original Quicksilver metal flake paint on the tank and side panels.
I’ve got an old Norton book by Steve Wilson (a pretty good, thorough author), which lists some useful VIN number info, which I’ll happily share if it’s new info to any one?
I’m sure he will have researched these VIN numbers as carefully as possible:
At 131180 the first Mk II Fastback model was built,
131257 was the very first S type, built in March ‘69.
133668 the Fastback model finally got the ignition points mod etc.
134108 was the first motor built in Wolverhampton.
135088 was the last S type built, apparently.
135140 was the very first Roadster model (with Halo).
141783 was the first of the new Mk III models, meaning the Roadsters lost their Halo and became the more familiar Roadster.
For me it’s interesting that from the first S type at 131257 to the last S type at 135088, even though it’s three thousand-ish numbers, that applied to all of the various Commando models on offer. Not just S types, but the rare R types too, and Fastbacks. Apparently there wasn’t much of a system at Norton; they’d build a small batch of one model, then switch over to another model, with the frame numbers just going up consecutively.
Sorry, this is a really long-winded way of saying that there must have been even less than 3,000-ish S types built. I’ve always guesstimated at 1,000ish 750 ‘S’ models? As apparently they weren’t very popular when new? Just a guess.
I’d love to know how many survive. What are we at here? Was it 15 or so, including mine?