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anybody here got a sidcar rig?
- Thread starter goo
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The official Norton-Villiers position at the launch of the Commando was that "This frame structure is ABSOLUTELY NOT suitable for sidecar use". I think those words were in the sales literature. I remeber tha sidecar community being VERY pissed off. Norton kept the Atlas in production for a while just to meet the dwindling call for sidecar-capable bikes. When cars were relatively expensive and you could get a sidecar attached relatively easly to conventional bikes, they were popular. For a while, I had a BSA A7 (500cc) with a single-seat Watsonian chair on it.
The original Austin/Morris Mini, which came out int 1959 (Ithink) particularly the van version a year later, destroyed the sidecar business almost overnight. Here was a 4-place car, admittedly a bit crude and not spectacularly reliable, that was priced lower than the Atlas. The original Mini car cost £400 out of the showroom door and the van was £300 (no sales tax on the van). It was relatively easy to modify the van to make it into a small station wagon. I think the Atlas was around £450 and a sidecar maybe another £200. I'm going from unresearched memory here guys, so I might be off a bit.
I remember, just before I left N-V to come to Boeing, I could have bought a new Commando at an employee discounted price of £430.00, which was just over $1000 at the exchange rate at the time, and Boeing would have shipped it as part of my relocation package. Unfortunately we were so broke, it wasn't even feasible.
The original Austin/Morris Mini, which came out int 1959 (Ithink) particularly the van version a year later, destroyed the sidecar business almost overnight. Here was a 4-place car, admittedly a bit crude and not spectacularly reliable, that was priced lower than the Atlas. The original Mini car cost £400 out of the showroom door and the van was £300 (no sales tax on the van). It was relatively easy to modify the van to make it into a small station wagon. I think the Atlas was around £450 and a sidecar maybe another £200. I'm going from unresearched memory here guys, so I might be off a bit.
I remember, just before I left N-V to come to Boeing, I could have bought a new Commando at an employee discounted price of £430.00, which was just over $1000 at the exchange rate at the time, and Boeing would have shipped it as part of my relocation package. Unfortunately we were so broke, it wasn't even feasible.
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Youll have to build a Kneeler , fit it in a N15CS , or fit Trainer Wheels . :lol: 
I'd forgottent that there was another thread on Commandos and sidecars, so I essentially doulble posted. Again, bottom line is the frame is not designed for the forces that a sidecar would impose. Although it predates the really sophisticated finite element structural analysis programs available these days, the desingers did use what was available then.
A specific desision was made NOT to design the frame for sidecar loading. In retorspect, they didn't too a very good job designing it for solo bike loads either!
We did have an interesting look into the technical smarts of some sidecar owners. Plumstead got a complaint from an Atlas owner that his new bike couldn't come close to the performance numbers in the factory brochures or the magazine road tests. He claimed the top speed was about 75 mph, rather than the 105 or so in the brochure and he was only getting about 35 mpg. Customer support were so "gob smacked" they invited the guy to visit the factory to see if they could diagnose the problem. He showed up, weighing about 250 lb., with his Atlas pulling a double-adult sidecar with his wife (also about 250 lb.) and three kids inside. He was all kinds of P.O.ed when he was told that the performance figures only applied to the Atlas in a solo configuration.
A specific desision was made NOT to design the frame for sidecar loading. In retorspect, they didn't too a very good job designing it for solo bike loads either!
We did have an interesting look into the technical smarts of some sidecar owners. Plumstead got a complaint from an Atlas owner that his new bike couldn't come close to the performance numbers in the factory brochures or the magazine road tests. He claimed the top speed was about 75 mph, rather than the 105 or so in the brochure and he was only getting about 35 mpg. Customer support were so "gob smacked" they invited the guy to visit the factory to see if they could diagnose the problem. He showed up, weighing about 250 lb., with his Atlas pulling a double-adult sidecar with his wife (also about 250 lb.) and three kids inside. He was all kinds of P.O.ed when he was told that the performance figures only applied to the Atlas in a solo configuration.
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