First Norton Memory

It was 1968. Parking lot of my high school. There sat a 1966 Norton Atlas. SO different from the big, awkward looking Harleys,
more raw and macho than the Japanese bikes. Stared at it a long time. Bought my first Norton, a 750 Commando, in 1970.

Hi
Brought a project ,orange peel tank, silver painted head & barrels, over the rust! M bars sunken seat.
Loved the engine hated the riding position. I now have better Nortons but still remember that bike with a smile on my face.
Chris

Answered an advert for a 69'S' from a lawyer in Arlington, VA, in 1970, test rode the bike over the Memorial Bridge and back and was hooked. Riding most other bikes after the Norton, is like being forced to have sex with a condom after enjoying the real thing.

Dave
69 S project

I'm 47,
I saw my first Norton at a local park when I was around 10 years old.
Bike was cool, girl was hot, rider was about the luckiest guy in the world.
I want to say it was black?
Today I'm that guy on my own combat.
Do you remember the cigarette commercials for Winston in the 1970's in Playboy?
Well the girl reminded me of the hottie in the smokes advertisement
My adolescent fantasy I guess.
Stuck in the 70's
Marshal

I was sixteen when I was at Bowdoin College in the summer of 1966 when I became friends with a Russian American sculptor, several years older than I was, who shared my love for sports cars and motorcycles.
His name was Vladimir Vladimir Vladimiroff and his family had come over from Russia with a trunk full of rubles when the whites lost power. Sort of an easy choice, leave or get shot. Nobody was buying rubles when they hit New York so the family opened a ballet school. One would think this would be an ideal spot for a young blond handsome Russian American but Vlad ended up in Brunswick Maine and luckily took up with Dory. Dory Davis was actually an intelligent and stable woman which was somewhat rare in the sixties, she soon was running my program at Bowdoin and last I knew she was a Dean.
They were wonderful people and went out of their way to be kind to poverty stricken students with parties at their old mansion in Cundy’s Harbor with a real widow’s walk.
This was great because Dory kept Vlad in the latest sports cars and motorcycles, I had only managed to study them at that point, and most of my knowledge was theoretical. At Vlad and Dorie’s place I got to see and experience my first real motorcycle.
My friends and I had messed with a Vespa and for a while I had tiny Harley with if I recall a two stroke and what looked like a Sportster tank. These bikes never ran long enough to actually hurt anybody and were better training for life’s frustrations to come than anything else.
One day Vlad and I were talking bikes and drinking coffee when he told me he had just bought a Norton. I had narrowed down my choices in bikes to Triumph, BSA, and Norton as fast but fairly affordable. The Nortons were a few hundred more if I recall so BSA or Triumph were my most likely choices.
We went out to his place to look at the Norton and take a ride. It was a couple of years old and if I recall Vlad had bought it from a friend. It was actually an N15CSR one of maybe 500 made, but we didn’t know it was special at the time, just that it was fast. I t had the big matchless frame with lower gearing and the 750 Atlas motor. Red and Chrome café tank, what looked like Dunstall pipes, rear sets, alloy guards, and fairly low bars. After an half hour or so booming around the winding roads near Cundy’s Harbor I loved it. If Vlad had been a salesman that would have been the sale.
I rode that bike until I blew it up and had to sell it when I started college. Thirty years later I found out that it was a N15CSR, super low production hybrid, not just a modified Norton. This is kind of like finding out later that your high school girlfriend was a movie star with large breasts.
I still did not expect to get a Norton but I had several hundred dollars burning a hole in my pocket for a bike the next summer. Vlad called me up in December and asked if I wanted to buy the Norton at a fire sale price. I think Dory visualized Vlad as road kill and Vlad’s desire for a Fiat Spider needed a few bucks on his side. I think everyone involved in the sale was happy when my friend Lewis and I showed up with his dad’s car and a trailer to haul it home.
I learned to ride on this bike after studying the manual for most of the night and sitting on it, heck I couldn’t sleep anyway. I may have waited until six am when I figured everyone would be up before firing it up. There was that one gentleman with the new baby who yelled but I rode off quickly and guiltily. I was booming along on the overpass that overlooks Greenville Maine’s cemetery when I decided to open it up. I must have been an expert by then because I had been riding at least ten minutes. The overpass curves nicely in the area where I twisted the throttle open. Suddenly the bike leaped alive and I realized I had been riding along on one cylinder. I had probably fouled the plug with my twenty minute starting ritual. I was fast heading toward the guardrail and would have made an Acapulco type dive into the cemetery when I remembered I had to lean a motorcycle to steer. I had been pretty much hanging on up to that point and remembering to actually operate the controls and lean made things much more pleasant if not as thrilling. “Calling on all my years of experience I froze at the controls.” Stirling Moss.
Friends later pointed out that perhaps it would have saved many people a lot of trouble had I just jumped the rail into the cemetery directly but I am actually still enjoying my passage though this veil of tears.

Cookie,
great testimony thanks for sharing.
Reads like a Harlon romance novel.
College mixed w/ foreign intrigue, hi brow socializing, and fast machines.
I've never seen the Norton you described.
Any old picture lying around you could post?
It sounded like an exciting era.
What is a widows walk?
I don't get around to many mansions
Marshal

They were very rare and pictures are hard to find. The National Motor Museum just got a Matchless badged one. I think there were 50 Blue AJS badged ones, maybe most badged Matchless, and there is some argument if any were badged Norton but I know there were since I owned one. Since this one was re imported from the US it has the wrong bars.
The US bars were higher and almost straight on mine.
A widows walk was common on old sea captain mansions in New England. Usually second or third floor where the wife could look out to sea or up the river to see her husband's ship return, this would allow her to get the butler downstairs in time.
Broken link removed

Early 1976, nearing my 20th birthday, just had insurance payout after my Bonneville was written off by a drunk driver, I wasn't sure what to buy, and through a friend, of a friend ,of a friend, I was taken to see a bike he had for sale , it was an early 850, in metallic Sky blue, not an original colour I know, it looked huge with the interstate tank, then I heard it running! ... no contest had to have it so £400 changed hands.
I loved that bike but it was stolen just over a year later, it ran and ran I don't think I even ever changed the oil in it , didn't know any better then!, I went out searching for it that shows how much I thought of it, I even went down to the police station twice a week for 2 months to see if there was any news.
I've had 3 others since but I always think back to my first one, funny thing is, it's the only one I don't have a picture of.
I probably look at it a bit through rose coloured specs, but so what! It WAS a great bike!!!
Robert

After 1st year at university, 1974 I got crapped off with books and went to work at Ken George Yamaha in Perth (West Australia). We had 2 factory mechanics from Japan providing training and support on the new models. We couldn't pronounce their names so we called them Speedo and Tacho. The big bike was the respectable XS650, and the new top of the range was the TX750 twin with counter balancers to smooth it out. That bike was a heap of S***. We had 9 motors on the floor under warranty fixes. My good mate Billy had just brought a brand new black 850 Mk2, and lent it to me one day to get to work when my '59 A10 was having a sickie. When I rolled up on the Commando, Speedo and Tacho came out for a look see. They seemed curious, never having ridden a British bike, but well indoctrinated in the rattling oil leaking ancient engineering legends. So, I invited Speedo to have a go on the Commando, and once sure that he grasped the right foot shift, I told him to give it some stick. Boy, he sure did that and damn near pulled a wheelie and his arms out of their sockets!
Speedo came back about 5 minutes later with round eyes. he got off the bike, looked at me, gave a bow and said "Sank you, that is a very interesting motorsyker". I think some respect was earned.

Mick

My first look at one that I can remember was when I was about 13 or 14 years old. It was a guy down the street that owned it, He would go up and down the street with it and show off. The few things that stand out most was the sound and the color, Bright yellow. He even gave me a ride on it once that I will never forget, Wow was it fast! And what was cool he also had a Triumph and a BSA, Must have liked the British bikes. Me and a few friends would go over to his house and watch him tuning them and working on them, I think this may have been the point in which I was infected with the Norton virus. I now own two Norton's, I have been getting along ok but must take one of the girls out for a ride on a regular basis as this makes me feel better. Ride safe and often, Chuck.

Cookie said:

They were very rare and pictures are hard to find. The National Motor Museum just got a Matchless badged one. I think there were 50 Blue AJS badged ones, maybe most badged Matchless, and there is some argument if any were badged Norton but I know there were since I owned one. Since this one was re imported from the US it has the wrong bars.
The US bars were higher and almost straight on mine.

Click to expand...

My good friend has a Norton (titled) G15CSR rolling basket case. It has no tank so i'm not sure if it had Matchless or Norton badges. The pipes are gone also, but it has the "CSR" on the motor and transmission and has the reversed camplate in the transmission.

He also bought a new P11 in 1967 that had Matchless badges and Matchless on the title. When he picked it up at Sport Motors (now DomiRacer Distributors) he told Bob Schanz that he bought a Norton not a Matchless. Bob smiled and walked back to the parts department and handed him two round Norton badges. "Here, now you have a Norton!". I wonder if the Norton N15CSR's were sold the same way!

I heard Berliner Motors (the distributor) changed some to Norton as the name was better known over here. Mine had Norton badges and was registered as a Norton but all that took was paper and badges. I had an Atlas manual and I was kind of perplexed how different the frame was. Luckily all I had to buy for it was magneto points,cables, and plugs other than hop up stuff, and Atlas stuff fit fine.

I think that I first fell for the image and Bob Carlos Clarke's photography.



...of course at that time I was still too young to ride which didn't stop me doing things like voting in the Motor Cycle News 'machine of the Year' polls.

When I finally got a powered two-wheeler, the regular friday night excursion was to Carl Rosner's dealership to stare in the window at the last of the Mk111s and T160vs as they came up for sale.

There use to be a comic strip in the San francisco Chronicle in the early 70s that featured Bruce, his Norton, and the highway patrolman.

Anybody remember the name of the comic strip?

Before you start blubbering how about a picture of that bike? Did it come with the wide or narrow fenders?

I had seen Nortons around and stared at them longingly at Suzuki City (Inglewood, CA) in the early seventies. In the early spring of 1974 Dennis the head mechanic was getting gas at my fathers garage where I was making $1 a day pumping gas after school. He knew me from my time loitering about the shop and spending what little money I had on parts for my 1971 TS90, so he asked me if my dad would let me work at the motorcycle shop as the gofer for $1.65 an hour (minimum wage) that was a NO-BRAINER. That Saturday morning 07:30 was my first day on the job, Dennis had to open the store so he told me to wipe down all of the bikes on the showroom floor. After that I swept the parking lot and the service area, and went in the back to clean up the bathroom (My dad insisted that our gas station have a clean restroom). It was the classic garage bathroom... grease stained sink, nasty toilet, I attacked it with the Ajax and the toilet brush, polished the faucets, Windexed the mirror, came out and started sweeping the shop again. Dennis went in to use the restroom and was stunned... by the end of the day I had washed all of the bikes in for service, cleaned out the junk corner of the shop and wiped down the bikes on the showroom a second time. At 6:00 after closing up the shop Dennis told me that Monday after school I could set myself up at the bench in the now clean corner of the shop. By the end of the week I was un-crating and assembling new bikes that came in...

Three big crates arrived with new 850 Commandos and I couldn't believe that I was getting PAID to put them together and ride them around the block to "break em in". I might have been a skinny kid (97lbs, 4-11, really!) with those dumbass glasses taped together, but I was now certifiably cool... a King among Nerds.

Come June, my Kingdom was sadly destroyed when my father told me that I couldn't stay home alone on the weekends (my family had some property in Soledad Canyon and went camping almost every weekend) and he needed me to run the gas station because the junior mechanic had quit. Dad told me that he would pay me $2 an hour and I would be doing the lighter repair work (oil and lube, tires, batteries, etc) but I was still heart broken.

Last month I finally bought a 750 Combat Commando (all the parts anyway).

I won't be at Hanson Dam this year, but wait till next year!

Remembering the birth of my children, walking off the MEDEVAC flight back from Iraq, the bugler playing Taps for my SPC Angel Franco, my first ride on a Commando... these are things that bring tears to my eyes.

1968. One of the cycle mags had this picture of a '67 P11 "Cheetah" in the desert just landing with the suspension fully compressed (all 4 inches of it!). I was hooked. I was scheduled to start classes at U of M in Ann Arbor and freshman could not have cars on campus. My solution was obvious. I needed that P11. My old man, ever the voice of reason, stopped me in my tracks. "You've never owned a bike, you'll kill yourself on that thing." In the end he bribed me by buying me a new 305 Honda Scrambler. Rode that until I got out of college and one week after graduation went straight to my Norton dealer. Of course by then P11's were no longer made. Heck even the "S" model was gone. So I bought my blue Roadster. 25 years later I got that hi-pipe P11. Of course it's now in several boxes.

You could always just come and look at the bikes ya know, That's what I did when mine wasn't finished in time for the dam ride. Very nice story. Thanks for your service, If you come look for the flat green Commando with a black tank, Chuck.

The first Norton I ever saw was the basket case I bought this summer. In high school the well off kids had BSAs and triumphs.
Once as they were speeding away from school I heard this guy say " If I could afford a Norton I would show those guys what a real bike can do. I never forgot that statement . After that I used to read motocross novels and wish could own any Bike. My parents wouldn't hear of such foolishness. Later married a Dr's daughter and heard even more horror stories.
Saw an ad for a Norton parts bike on craig's List that wasn't too far away so I went to check it out. When I saw that sad old thing I knew then that I had to save it and finally own my own Norton. I had just sold a Sportster that I had to take over payments on. Won't go into that. I loved the sporty but finally gave in to the nagging tales of woe and sold it. Being bikeless was too much to bear so getting the Norton to restore was something I refused to pass up.

Should have asked about the first Brit Bike experience. Had a BSA B33 single hard tail 500 in Monterey CA in '64. Now I can tell some stories about that on the PCH.

Dave
69 S project