A night a Donington Hall

[bpjthornton]

Hello All,

Thought I'd share an interesting evening with you.....

As I've recently spent a few quid getting my Norton serviced at Donington Hall, I received an invite to a 50th Anniversary Commando Unveiling Evening. Norton had the new Californias, a 50th Cafe and a 50th sport in the library of Donni Hall. Stuffed animals on the wall and open fires, very posh.

Some key points of the evening, in brief;

-Norton will be releasing a new scrambler like motorcycle with a half V4 in it. A 650 cc, 100hp, robust 'winter bike' was Stuarts description when probed further on it

-Norton has signed a deal with a big Asian manuacturing/engineering company. They will be producing the new parallel twin which is a derivative of the V4. Norton has sold them the plans and engineering support, everything else including the label of the bike and engine will be as per Asian companies wishes. The profits of this endeavour will be ploughed back into UK based Norton R&D and manufacture

-Some Norton bikes will be built in Asia and will only be sold to Asian countries, not sure of all the details of that

-Norton has signed some sort of exclusivity deal with China.

-You can buy a highly spec'd 50th Anniversary Commando this week for base rate. Personal observation; the Commando looks awesome with the Dominator front end. Also its never been cheaper/better value to buy a Commando

-Succesful bike show in Milan, Norton looking to push harder into Europe. Developing & strengthening its European dealer network. Castiglioni (owner of MV Agusta) was a big fan of the V4.

-Met Clive (member of this forum), only guy brave enough to ride his new Commando there on the night. Getting chilly now. Nice to meet you Clive.

-There will be a big bash at Donington Hall to celebrate 50 years of Commando on the 1st and 2nd of Sep 2018. There will be camping available. This event will be supported by the Norton Owners Club.

-Oh and the new V4 is frighteningly fast. (I'm saving for one, don't tell the wife).

Exciting for the future.......some pics

 

[Fast Eddie]

Nice one Ben and I’m sorry I couldn’t join you.

Funny that you mention the scrambler, we were just talking about that on another thread! I guess a 650 is a far better suited platform for that genre than the 961.

Wish you’d posted more pics of the cafe racer. That ticks boxes for me that I didn’t even realise I had...

VERY excited about mine now !!

 

[TonyA]

It would have been nice if that was going on when I was there 2.5 months ago .

 

[Fast Eddie]

Apparently there are some good pics of the bikes lined up last night on Facebook.

I can’t be the only Luddite who doesn’t do Facebook surely?

Any chance one of our resident facebookers could put those pics on here somehow?

 

[bpjthornton]

I'll have a dig on facebook, see what I can find.

 

[Britfan60]

Ya gotta love seeing a line of beautiful bikes like that lined up in the library. That library is larger than my house. That's some very valuable info you posted there, Ben. A 650 scrambler putting out 100 ponies? I do hope they bring them over. I don't need to have one off the first boat load though. Looking forward to it.

 

[BLIGHTYBRIT/SF]

& here are few of mine,better in the flesh these machines & terrific setting

 

[Fast Eddie]

Thanks Ben!

 

[TonyA]

Superb Richard ! You were there then ! That metal flake paint took me back to High School , it is so 70's . I like the Red white and blue California. That Manx silver CR ain't bad either !

 

[Britfan60]

THE RED AND BLACK ARE METAL FLAKE!! WICKED!!
THESE ARE THE FACEBOOK PHOTOS. HOPE YOU DON'T MIND, BEN.

 

[Britfan60]

 

[Britfan60]

Its growing on me. Love the polished fork. Shot from different angles, still a pretty cool looking machine.

 

[BritTwit]

Some interesting new features.
Black forks are nice, but the polished triple trees a bit too much.
Embossed seat section
50th anniversary labeling
Polished engine covers
Shorty silencers.
All nice features.

No too crazy about the front fender stays though.

I would like having the option of black cylinder barrels on any model.

 

[Fast Eddie]

Black painted barrels have been a £300 option on any new 961 for a while now.

I agree about the mudguard stays, I’ll be painting mine satin black if the factory won’t do it for me!

Does anyone know if / when they intend to change the timing cover logo to the new one? I hardly noticed it myself, but someone I know asked the question.

 

[BritTwit]

Does anyone know if / when they intend to change the timing cover logo to the new one? I hardly noticed it myself, but someone I know asked the question.

How is the new logo different?

 

[Fast Eddie]

How is the new logo different?

Not very! Like I said, I personally hardly noticed it.

Subtle changes to the characters, most obvious is perhaps the inside of the two ‘o’ characters. And there is not a double crossed ‘t’ instead it relies on the long curved line passing through it.

The changes are so subtle it does beg the questions as to why they bothered! Nevertheless, the timing cover is now different to the tank and, I believe, all other logos on the bike.

Just to be clear, I’m not whining about this, someone I know asked the question ‘when will they change the timing cover to match’?

I just thought one of you boys might know...

 

[bpjthornton]

Crikey, you've got a good eye Nigel!

 

[Britfan60]

How is the new logo different?

Could it be a copyright infringement deal like the minor change on the Triumph logo? Connecting the p to the T instead of the h to the T.

Some have mentioned on another site that the metal flake is hideous. I bet it looks a lot better than it photographs.

 

[richard-7]

I bumped the PAINT thread to discuss logos further.

 

[MxMartin]

Hi All, just a quick introduction as a new member of this forum, and fingers crossed a new owner of a 961 Commando 'Cafe' 50th

I attended the Donington Hall event and by sheer coincidence you can see me (sporting my recently grown grey beard) in Ben's 2nd photo above lol. Another coincidence is that my first bike was a 1968 750 Commando which I acquired in 1974 but alas proceeded to write it off in 1976

Look forward to bumping into some of you as time goes by.