Norton "76" (2013)

Maybe related to generation, but my contemporaries and I bought Commandos for reasons....fast, fun and cheap. In '81 I bought a running '73 750 for $800. It's been 15 years since I bought my current '72 750 and understand fast and cheap may not exist any longer. Fun still fits.

acotrel said:

The British should have avoided trying to make Japanese bikes. The most sensible Norton twin was the Manxman 650. It was based on the manx racers . '

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This is a strange comment ? (as usual).

Nortons were competing in the same market for new customers - as the japanese were later on.
Nortons were a very small factory - and were still looking for what would sell, in volume ?

And the manxman had high handlebars, orange seat, small tank and gaudy* blue paintwork (*for some, anyway).
WHERE IS THE MANX CONNECTION ????
And was not a good seller ?
(looks like the prelude to the, later, Commando Hi-Rider style bike ??!).


(Nice bike, whomever 's it is.)

Someone doesn't know their Nortons ?
Sorry for the diversion by you-know-who, back to Norton 76 subject matter....

The manx connection lies in the fact that the dominator was a cheap way of getting similar handling and power using the same frame, and an engine more suited to mass production. The Manxman 650 was probably the sensible limit of development, but from memory were fairly expensive compared with a Bonneville 650. The Atlas 750 was a failure because the bigger engine used to pull it's base flange off. When I look at my commando engine, the crankshaft has had a hole bored into the flywheel, but if you fill it with a steel plug, the balance factor is almost ideal for a rigidly mounted motor in a fast bike. I don't believe that is simply an accident, however it would have been highly undesirable to try to sell a bike which vibrated too much at low revs in the same market niche where the Japanese bikes had dominance with four cylinder bikes. The Norton commando was trying to do two things - be a commuter bike, but also a sports bike - very difficult, I suggest. A bit of serious market research might have helped the company. My feeling is that leaving the hinge in the middle of the bike was a design error. The isolastics might have been better had the ends of the swing arm pivot been picked up at the rear subframe (at the Z plates) . This would have allowed the motor to vibrate vertically, but maintain the rigidity in the sideways direction.

Same frame ?
The Manxman used the slimline frame, Manx used a wideline.
But we take your point, they are both came from Nortons.

We diverge again....
The Atlas was a failure ?
Manxman was only a brief run, 14 months was it. ? Few hundred bikes.
Atlas, P11, Rangers, G15Cs etc sold for 7 years was it, and sold 50 times as many bikes.
Or was it 60 or 70 times....

Offhand, saying the Manxman was based on the Manx, you couldn't pick a Norton of that era that was less based on a Manx !!

Knacktully the kmandoe was a Manx for the tourist , in that a geezer could go about his buisness on one with Manx performance , If it wasnt built on Monday or Friday .

Ere Matty, that bike has twin disks up front.
And a huge fuel tank.
Someone knew how to modify them for 'touring' as you put it.
(note the race numbers on that bike. And all the Renaults in the background.)

And still we diverge from the Norton 76.
Which had triple disks, it must be noted. Brembo even...

Hey Matt, any chance of posting the test done in CBG?

Cheers,
Graeme

I suggest there is a continuity of development from the rigid framed inters of the 30s, through the featherbed manx and domiracer, slimeline a nd wideline, to the manxman, atlas and then commando. The rotary Nortons were not a continuation of that line, nor were the P11, N15 and Matchless based bikes. The development line was of cafe racer style bikes , it was never going to lead to a Honda Goldwing or a Fireblade . The commando was a futile attempt to make a comfortable bike out of a cafe racer. Even Ducati failed to do that, however Norton should have had the same customer base. There were not many Ducatis sold in the 70s, and even now it is a high quality specialised type of motorcycle. It is impossible to beat the Asians at their own game. I believe the new commando might do very well if it maintains its cafe racer style.

Matt's picture is a Commando used by French Gendarmerie (see the sticker on the tank). There was a handful , used for public relation in rally , not for day to day police activity.
Tank is 22 litres , seat is a PR one. Front brake is by Dunstall , rear brakes has the PR vents, electrics are simplified and motor is Combat or standard 72.

It seems to have produced less power and had more problems with handlebar flutter than the Mk3 it was supposed to replace.

Yes a bit of the rose colored goggles here. But not reaching
the level of the review of the 1970 Royal Enfield Interceptor
"it feels as if will go farther faster off the road than any of the others".
It was styled as an desert racer but a 56 Caddy limo would have done
better.
I think the real point is suppose it was produced and even successfully
sold, then what? There was no what.

Thanks for posting that.

Interesting that with a stated 10:1 compression it has a claimed 54 bhp.
And 496 lb with a gal of fuel on board, so gained a bit of weight along the way.
Quite a bit...

Hey Matt, any chance of posting the test done in CBG?

sorry komet , found that info trawling round on google .
Will have to hope another of our intrepid contributors will oblige .

It is easy to criticise the British for being inept but I think a lot of the problem was lack of funds for R&D and racing. The rest was the lack of a Marshall Plan to rebuild after WW2. We Australians inherited the complete British engineering trades system, so we now have almost completely lost our mechanical engineering industries to the unimaginative grubs in Asia. Show me one Chinese designed motor vehicle which is a quality product ('Fit for purpose with obvious attention to detail' ) , yet they seem to have the whole market in every other engineering area. If they gain the top (quality) end of the market first, we are all finished as far as engineering is concerned.

Is this the 50th time you have posted this off-topic spiel yet ?

And, funny, the Americans and NZers and Canadians and Sth Africans and Swedes and Greeks etc etc are all commenting that their jobs are going to China and the East. Any student of economic or manufacturing history over the past few centuries will have noticed that the jobs ALWAYS flow to the cheapest labour markets - keeps the shareholders happy. Thats what Capitalism is all about, comrade....

A Great Wall 4WD/SUV finished quite high up in this years Dakar, held in Sth America (again). Finished similarly the past few years quite well up, obviously quite tough, good backup team, and well driven like they need to be...

acotrel said:

It is easy to criticise the British for being inept but I think a lot of the problem was lack of funds for R&D and racing. The rest was the lack of a Marshall Plan to rebuild after WW2. We Australians inherited the complete British engineering trades system, so we now have almost completely lost our mechanical engineering industries to the unimaginative grubs in Asia. Show me one Chinese designed motor vehicle which is a quality product ('Fit for purpose with obvious attention to detail' ) , yet they seem to have the whole market in every other engineering area. If they gain the top (quality) end of the market first, we are all finished as far as engineering is concerned.

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The main problem now is a generation in general that is born thinking they are owed something,that includes those who come out of engineering institutions thinking they know everything when they have no real world experience.
You reap what you sow.

The picture of the Norton 76 is only one piece of the big picture.
The forks are Ceriani's,the calipers Brembo 08's as are the cast iron brake rotors,probably the best parts available at that time,as used on both Moto Guzzi's and Ducati's from 1974 (900 GT - 750 GT)

By 1976 the Japanese were rewriting what had been excepted for decades,the 1976 Suzuki GS 750 was just one bike all started by the CB750 in 1969.
Times were changing as were the consumers including older generations thinking to what was being offered.
Has anyone considered that the British bike industry was doomed either way,some things are incapable of change and will be left behind,finances or not.
First you have to get into the ball game (Bloor) ,from there you can build a market if you have the vision,foresight and modern tooling to make it viable.

If its and buts were candy we would all have a merry Christmas.

The entire front end is about the same as my 76 Guzzi - which did not use Ceriani forks.
Mick Duckworth book says they are Paoli.
With those odd little damper cartridges inside them, that soon leak.

On the subject of management- bears repeating here.
Can't recall who reported this, but someone went up to AMC James Greet (?) workshops, to see why some of AMCs automatic tooling there was producing a high % of rejects in the small item it was outputting. The factory guys there advised they didn't have the tooling to adjust these machines, and weren't authorized to make any adjustments. Report went to management on this.

6 months later, author was back in Greet.
Automatic machines were still turning out a high % of reject parts.
Nothing had happened, or changed...

Time Warp said:

By 1976 the Japanese were rewriting what had been excepted for decades,.

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1976 ??

Somewhere my father was given a little 1959 Honda twin, as part payment for some work done.
This thing was an electric start 125 cc twin, beautifully engineered inside, lovely castings, long lasting thick chromework, a little piece of clockwork engineering. Heavy as lead, and quircky square styling, but ran nicely. Quite some years later, if parts were not available, Honda offered a service where they would take orders for needed parts, and have them made. Quite a long lead time, and quite expensive, but the offer was there. Take that to your typical auto maker, who generally dump all spares as soon as the legal requirement to keep them is done - 7 years ??

I can recall going to Norton Villiers warehouse spares dept, admiring the line of Commandos, and enquiring about some dommie spares.
"Dommie, whats that". End of conversation.
What was that someone said about a line of development in Nortons down the years...

Rohan said:

Time Warp said:

By 1976 the Japanese were rewriting what had been excepted for decades,.

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1976 ??

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I was talking about real motorcycles not commuters to get the east mobile.
Motorcycles like the Z1 - CB750 - GS750/1000 etc that could do a lap of Australia or circumnavigate the lower 48 with reliability.
Motorcycles that attracted a new mass that was not stuck in the 1960's.
Adventure became reality for anyone game on a grand scale.
Of course the best handling bikes still came out of Italy (Ducati) in that decade but they were to have their own dilemma's.

It is hard to believe then that NVT chose the 35 mm Paoli fork over the 38 mm Ceriani.

The Norton 76 picture still has to looked at combined with the state of the world at the time including the UK economy in that decade.
Of course it was the USA's doing as they left entering the second war late so the UK would be forced into financial lending that would encumber it forever as pay back.
Perhaps Roosevelt disliked Nortons. :wink: