Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos.

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

Madnorton said:

The AMC website is cool though, and shame a follow on from the start of the AN days is not available.

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Yes, it would be interesting to see such details for the Commando era.
It would require some serious work, and thinking, from folks who were there.
Having some photos to suit would also be needed, you don't see much of Commando production pics,
only a few stray views.
Maybe there is a big archive somewhere ??

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

If any of you guys have a brake rotor drilled and ground by Gary Holowich, have him ask Brian Slark for for some info. They trail ride together several times a year. Or you might catch up with him yourself at Barber Vintage Days this fall.

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

Some scant details of the later Commando era.
These are Mk 3 850's so quite late production.



do not reproduce ?

http://america.pink/norton-villiers_3268164.html

Another mention of frames from Manchester.
That rumour is going to be hard to kill ?

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

Reggie said:

Long serving employee John Rourke, referring to one of the directors, D. G. Golding, remembers overhearing him say that "as long as he got his Rolls Royce each year with his AMC number plate on it, he didn't care much what happened (to the company)."

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Thanks for posting Rohan, I've enjoyed looking around on this link.

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This is certainly bullshit. The company was'nt financially fit to pay high salaries to any of the directors. That's probably why the company failed - they didn't hire qualified managers. The board of shareholders consisted of quite ordinary people (surprisingly) and it's very unlikely they would have agreed to extravagant salaries, considering the state of the company.

Having seen a picture of Donald Heather's car (he drove a car which resembled the Rover P5), I think we can dismiss the above statement as slander, malicious and disparaging gossip, a habit in which the Brits excel unfortunately.

-Knut

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

Danno said:

If any of you guys have a brake rotor drilled and ground by Gary Holowich, have him ask Brian Slark for for some info. They trail ride together several times a year. Or you might catch up with him yourself at Barber Vintage Days this fall.

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Wow just found this good reading, thanks for the link!

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

The confusion over where the Commando "came from" may result from the location of the Experimental and early Design Department location. I worked in the experimental department there, for about 18 months during the early road testing of the two Commando prototypes, followed by the AJS Stormer. I left in May of 1968 to emigrate to the US.

The departments were located in the Villiers factory on Marston Road in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire and the development and test programs were run from there. Once the Commando was ready for production, immediately after the 1967 Eaarls Court show, the Commando project was moved to the AMC factory in Plumstead, London. I think the two prototypes stayed at Marston Road, along with an early US-built P-11 that I also tested, briefly. I'd left before the Stormer went into production, but I'm pretty sure that was initially also at Plumstead, until the company moved everything to Andover.

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

frankdamp said:

The confusion over where the Commando "came from" may result from the location of the Experimental and early Design Department location.

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I wasn't aware there was any confusion.

frankdamp said:

Once the Commando was ready for production, immediately after the 1967 Eaarls Court show, the Commando project was moved to the AMC factory in Plumstead, London.

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The Commando wasn't exactly ready for production immediately after Earls Court as it was around another 5 months before production began.

Re: Factory details and tour of AMC, home of early Commandos

My Feb '69 still has the Tank Badges & Points where the Mag was.
Al