Priest House Hotel

Splendid to see that he is investing his money in bettering the build quality and reliability of the motorcycles in this way...

(I nearly made an inappropriate joke about him buying this to reduce hotel bills from putting up customers stranded from bringing their bikes to be fixed... glad I avoided saying that)...!
 
Hello Eddie , Ok , I will bite on this. Let see where to start , Got it. Norton Motorcycles takes lots of money to run , and where Stuart gets that money is up to him. As far as I am concerned , I want Stuart to remain profitable so that he can continue with his hobby/love (Norton Motorcycles) . Some day Norton will be profitable , it will take time . they may be there already but I doubt it. He is probably covering his costs right now (I HOPE) but that is it . Now , once this happens (profitability) , things should start to take off. And I wish him and the future of Norton well !!
 
TonyA said:
Hello Eddie , Ok , I will bite on this. Let see where to start , Got it. Norton Motorcycles takes lots of money to run , and where Stuart gets that money is up to him. As far as I am concerned , I want Stuart to remain profitable so that he can continue with his hobby/love (Norton Motorcycles) . Some day Norton will be profitable , it will take time . they may be there already but I doubt it. He is probably covering his costs right now (I HOPE) but that is it . Now , once this happens (profitability) , things should start to take off. And I wish him and the future of Norton well !!

I wish Norton well too Tony. I would love to want to buy one. But I won't whilst there are so many reported issues with them. I'm not knocking anyone who does buy one, its just that I would want a brand new bike to be pretty damn close to being fuss free.

But, and this is a purely personal opinion, actions like this don't strike me as steps in the right direction. He's taking money from the UK government to finance his motorcycle operations on the one hand and then taking money from elsewhere for ventures like this (it could be his own cash, but my guess is that its borrowed, that it doesn't really matter).

It is fairly clear that the motorcycle business is still crying out for cash injection, to sort out the current model, its supply chain and distribution network properly, plus finance the super ambitious plans for new models.

Some folk criticise Norton's for being too expensive. I look at it on the contrary, with the low volumes Norton has, I can't see how they make money. And I certainly can't see how they can even begin to make the kind of sums needed to develop said new models.

You are right that Stuarts personal affairs are indeed his own business. But the underlying meaning behind my rather tongue in cheek post is that actions like this just don't look to me to be the most appropriate to ensure the motorcycle business thrives as (I think) we would all like to see.

I'll be delighted to be proven very wrong...
 
Hello Eddie , I agree more or less with everything you've written. Lets not forget that if Stuart always played it safe , we wouldn't be riding the new bikes we have. And yes they are not fuss free , but still a very nice machine.
 
TonyA said:
Hello Eddie , I agree more or less with everything you've written. Lets not forget that if Stuart always played it safe , we wouldn't be riding the new bikes we have. And yes they are not fuss free , but still a very nice machine.

You're right there Tony.

Trouble is, its a very fine line between being a successful risk taker and an unsuccessful one.

Its kinda like the issue with history being biased (history is only written by the victors). Business is the same, for every story about a successful risk taker making the big time, there are a million untold stories of over ambitious failure bankruptcy !

But as I said previously, I really and sincerely hope that Mr Garner does pull this off properly.
 
From what I have heard (only Thursday night) when a member left the car park from our meeting on a 961 - I would not want one either, a shame as they look better in the flesh and really comfy. I would be really worried if my MK3 sounded like a transit full of spanners. When John Bloor started out - he did not want warranty issues, so it is said that the early bikes were over engineered on specs to avoid failures, surely Norton can do the same.

I can see the link in why to have the hotel, but this could be a hassle not worth the return in my eyes.
 
Madnorton said:
From what I have heard (only Thursday night) when a member left the car park from our meeting on a 961 - I would not want one either, a shame as they look better in the flesh and really comfy. I would be really worried if my MK3 sounded like a transit full of spanners. When John Bloor started out - he did not want warranty issues, so it is said that the early bikes were over engineered on specs to avoid failures, surely Norton can do the same.

I can see the link in why to have the hotel, but this could be a hassle not worth the return in my eyes.




It's unfort. you feel this way. They are a great machine.
 
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