Norton Commando

[mickj]

This might be of interest to a certain forum member

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/ca...auctioned.html

[Darren69]

Ah nice, it's already in a wooden box, so why not do the kindest thing and just bury it already!

NVT was the death knell of the already struggling,stagnet, almost dead or dying British bike industry, RIP. Ironically it was the behaviour of the govenrment and the workers themselves plus the lack of quality that was to spell the end and that bike although fairly decent, came a few years too late to save it unfortunately. Just my opinion btw. Sad but true. Italy was to be Japans next victim.

[Nickj]

But Italy had Government support, else it was at least as financially rocky as the UK manufacturers of the time.

'77 .. That's a year younger than my new bike I'm getting Friday

[slob]

Originally Posted by Darren69

Ah nice, it's already in a wooden box, so why not do the kindest thing and just bury it already!

NVT was the death knell of the already struggling,stagnet, almost dead or dying British bike industry, RIP. Ironically it was the behaviour of the govenrment and the workers themselves plus the lack of quality that was to spell the end and that bike although fairly decent, came a few years too late to save it unfortunately. Just my opinion btw. Sad but true. Italy was to be Japans next victim.

...to be fair I think the Japanese were just learning how to build better bikes and waiting in the wings, while the old imperial attitude and lack of investment in R&D led to the British bike industry killing itself

I reckon £30K is probably quite a low estimate for a brand new, crated Commando

[Darren69]

Yea, Italy had the government behind them and pretty much a blank cheque I would have thought in every effort to save whatever viable manufacturing businesses they could. The UK govt on the other hand tried to do the same to a lesser degree with NVT but the workers just didn't want to know and went on strike and we were on a 3 day week at the time too with lots of other issues so most people had no money to buy a new bike anyway.

[slob]

I was still at primary school, doing my ‘homework’ by candlelight during the three day week

[Darren69]

Yep, me too. it seems strange today that at that time we had to have candles and such at the ready for when the power went off and thought nothing much of it. If it happened today I imagine there would be protests and riots and all sorts?

Originally Posted by Darren69

Yep, me too. it seems strange today that at that time we had to have candles and such at the ready for when the power went off and thought nothing much of it. If it happened today I imagine there would be protests and riots and all sorts?

Sadly Darren as you obviously already know, it's a British desease , I will correct myself by saying I am unaware of other countries attitudes, however we as a nation only plan short term. I see it in my working life,as you must, and the demise of the British motorcycle industry is a brilliant example but could equally be applied to our car industry , cycle industry........etc etc, short term thinking" if it's not broke,why fix it " ?.....sad but true, guess we just suck it up and move on.

[Darren69]

Yea I agree, it's complacency and applies to any manufacturing really but all our big ones are all but gone now, coal, steel, cars, bikes and any other heavy industry and so we are at the mercy of any country to impose whatever costs they want to supply us with the stuff that we need. We can't survive as a country without it, which is why the whole EU divorce thing is just madness to me.

[slob]

we probably shouldn’t venture too far down this rabbit hole

. . . . . .and r e l a x ...

[crawsue]

I'm going to sling some sh*t here..... I've got a Matchless G80....500ccs of pre/post war British Cr*p, it was made around 1960 and you can trace the motor design to the 1930s....AMC designed racing V4s and won the 1st World Championship...but when Edward Turner (Triumph CEO) returned from a fact finding trip to Japan saying " there's no problem here, they only want to build small bikes" we were f*ckd..
30 years later BMW gave up on Rover, saw the Mini opporchancity and buggered off.
Our 60 year Hari Kari will be complete when Boris and his Nigel sucking loonies bluster us out of the EU in January......Covid will be a walk in he park in comparison.....RANT OVER.

[Darren69]

It only took another 9 years for Honda to build the CB750 and that was the final nail, what had we come up with in those 9 years?

[crust]

There were plans/designs for a 1000cc V5 as part of a modular range starting with a 200cc single, 400cc twin, 600cc triple, 800cc four.

Sadly they decided to build a three cylinder version of a leaky antique pushrod twin

[Darren69]

The T160 oh dear, even the Commando based on Model 7 design from 1940s couldn't be described as cutting edge, even Norton were surprised by its success as it was such an old design.