Norton's history stretches over more than a
century, and can, therefore, not be told in the small space the internet
allows. When the author tried to give a general picture he was aware of
the inadequacy of his attempt.
As numerous as the books on Norton are the wrong judgments their authors
arrive at, and the traps into which they fall, describing the various
characters in the fascinating Norton story as either wholly white or
wholly black. It is often amazing to see with what little knowledge
and understanding of the situation these authors damn capable
men who made mistakes that, admittedly, often seem inexplicable in
hindsight, whilst applauding rogues that managed to paint a good picture
of themselves in the press of the time.
James Lansdowne Norton is unanimously seen as a figure of light, and
indeed he seems to have been an honest and very impressive man. In spite
of that, he sowed the seed that brought Norton prominence, as well as
forestalled the things that the marque could have achieved- he put too
much of the firm's efforts into racing and ignored the commercial
viability of the Norton firm. This is a theme that runs through Norton's
history, right up to the present day- the last Isle of Man TT was won in
1992, the year production of the Norton Rotary all but ended, and a
British Championship was won by the Duckhams Norton Team after production
had actually come to a complete standstill.
Joe Craig, the "Professor" of the Norton works team in the
thirties and fifties, is hailed as a genius, but the designers who made
his successes possible are often hardly mentioned. Names like Arthur
Caroll or Leo Kuzmicki are often unfamiliar even to Norton addicts. The
fact that Joe Craig mobbed Bert Hopwood out of his office at Norton,
thereby forestalling any commercial success Norton could have had by
building more up-to-date production bikes after the war is virtually
unknown.
Dennis Poore is, to most authors, the man who dug Norton's (and Triumph/BSA's)
grave, making a sizeable profit in doing so. The fact that he, who
obviously made his fair share of sometimes stupid mistakes, kept Norton
alive against all commercial considerations in the years 1977 through
1987, is conveniently forgotten by these people.
Another bad guy is Philippe Le Roux, who squandered shareholders' money in
investment deals that went extremely wrong in the period 1987 to 1990. As
I understand the DTIs investigation into Norton Group's affairs, however,
personal gain could not be proven and I believe he lost some of his own
money in the process. Apart from starting the Norton rotary race team with
its many successes, he stopped Dennis Poore to at last liquidate Norton
Motors Ltd- a process that had already begun, unknown to the public, when
Le Roux stepped in.
The real gravedigger, not to say grave robber, was David Macdonald, who
sold off everything he found at Norton Motors Ltd between 1991 and 1993,
at discount prices. The majority of the British motorcycle press in its
infinite wisdom applauded him as an idealistic saviour who, unfortunately,
was not rewarded by the success due to him.
The Canadian asset strippers who aquired the sad remains of
Norton from Macdonald and the banks for a song in 1993 flogged
everything that still remained until they at last sold even the
premises in December 2000. They furthermore ruined Norton's remaining reputation in the
process by trying to get their hands on investors money, launching a
ridiculous motorcycle concept (internally called the "Dementis"
V8, developed by MCD(sic!)). These gentlemen were then hailed by Peter Cox
of the Norton Owners Club as heroes that tried to restart Nortons with a
"perhaps over-ambitious project" that, unfortunately, "cost
more money than a small firm could afford".........
In 1997, seeing these sorry things going on, we started our own motorcycle
project, building a small production run of Norton C652
"International" motorcycles in the years 1999/2000. We also
developed a prototype, the C652 "Combat", for Norton Motorcycles
International inc., who had lost faith in their V8 project, realizing it
was a stilborn, overpaid heap of unsolved problems in the form of a
motorcycle nobody waited for. However, before they could take
delivery of the prototype they were bankrupted through the constant drain
of their finances without delivery of working product from the other
source- a drain, that had been going on for years.
In 2003, we sold our part of the trademarks to Norton America, who
developed a modern "Commando" under project leader Kenny Dreer.
This effort, again, was stillborn and ended in Winter 2006/2007, before
even the first production ready machine was built. Only prototypes existed,
which had not been developed emissionwise to be road-legal. Before this
part of the development was even started, the main investor wisely pulled the
plug.
So the only parts of the Norton Motorcycle
Tradition with a direct lineage reaching back to James Lansdowne Norton still operating are the "Norton Motors Group" firms-
Norton Motors Ltd, Andover Norton International Ltd, and Norton Motors
(Deutschland) GmbH.
But read on!
J.Seifert/2010
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