NORTON COMMANDO

BEST OF BRITISH

The Norton Commando, introduced in 1967, was described as the first superbike, at least until the Japanese redefined the term. It blew the competition from Triumph and BSA into the weeds.

“This Norton has it all. Good looks, performance that’s almost frightening, brakes, and handling. Like its namesake, the Commando should creep into the enemy troop’s camp when no one’s looking, get the job done, and then sneak away,” claimed Cycle Guide in January 1969.

For five years in a row, the Commando was the Motor Cycle News bike of the year. It’s tempting to think of that as British parochialism, but the Norton really handled. Once the Japanese started building stiffer frames to go along with all their other advantages, their victory in the performance motorcycle market was almost total and has remained that way until recent times.

The Commando’s launch raised Norton’s name back to the top rank, as a worthy successor to the 500cc singles that won the Isle of Man (IOM) TT every year from 1947 to 1954 — as well as the first one in 1907.

The Manx Nortons of the ’50s featured the famous ‘featherbed’ frame, a stiff doublecradle design that gave Norton a competitive edge. Ironically, this stiffness was a liability in Norton’s earlier twin-cylinder bikes. Like Triumph’s parallel twins, the Norton engine’s cylinders were flung up and down at the same time on the same throw of the crankshaft. That built-in vibration, acceptable in a 500, got worse as the engines increased in size and power.

Raising the compression from 8.9:1 to 10:1 really put a strain on the bottom end, and fixes that didn’t work, including a disastrous change from ball to roller bearings, put a strain on the business. The engine finally got bigger ball bearings but not the balancer shaft that it really needed. Instead of fixing the engine, Norton changed the frame.

Chassis engineer Stefan Bauer, formerly with Rolls-royce, said that the feather-bed frame was all wrong anyway, so he set about designing a conventional backbone frame but using the engine as an integral member.

The Brits had also persevered with separate gearboxes — now called ‘pre-unit construction’ — but Bauer’s design tied the engines and gearboxes together in a couple of strong frame brackets. He then isolated the jiggly motor in rubber mounts, creating Norton’s famous ‘isolastic suspension’.

Rubber mounts had been tried before but not very successfully, as alignment with the final drive tended to jiggle about too. Bauer made the swing-arm pivot part of the same suspended unit, meaning that the chain stayed aligned. Vibration was also transmitted

through the drivetrain to the rear tyre, where it was also helpfully dissipated. If any frame should have been called the featherbed, this was it.

Handling was reportedly glorious. The bikes were light, nimble, and powerful, and, without the distraction of teeth rattling about in their heads or numb hands, riders could punt the bikes about with confidence.

“You can flick the bike from side to side through S-bends without any protest at all from the chassis. It’s more like riding a good 500 than an 850,” reported Cycle World in April 1974.

And it looked as fast as it went. To move the centre of gravity forward and allow more room for a bigger air-box, Norton canted the cylinders forward — possibly the only benefit of having a separate gearbox — giving the bike a rakish air, complemented by its kickedup mufflers. There was no mistaking the lines of a Norton.

The Commando was owned by serious motorcyclists, more for its great riding qualities than the dedication needed to keep it going.

As the engine vibrated as much as ever, regular bolt tightening and the application of Loctite, especially on the exhaust headers, were required, but Norton owners say that the later models were probably not as unreliable as most British bikes have been painted.

The 1975 Commando 850 MKIII featured here was the last of them, and it might have been the best of them. Production continued into the following year, and the final models were sold the year after that.

Poignantly, the bike shows the cash-strapped factory’s last flips of the coin in its efforts to keep going. It wears one of the startling colours Norton adopted in the ’70s to look younger and more fun. Its gear lever was moved to the left-hand side for homologation in the US — and to appeal to young riders who had already learned to ride on Japanese bikes. It has discs front and rear, and it featured an electric starter motor for the first time.

It took Triumph until 1980 to make a starter motor standard on its Bonneville, but Honda’s CB750 had one from 1969. Bizarrely, the starter motor sourced for the Commando had four brushes, but was supplied on the bike with two, which made it pretty feeble. Our feature bike has a beefed-up starter and electronic ignition.

Owner Chris Stephens grew up with Japanese bikes, but says that the Norton Commando, with its upswept pipes and throaty roar, was the one English bike that always turned his head. Chris had wanted a yellow bike but soon realized it had to be the ’75 model for him, which didn’t come in yellow. After 30 years, he wasn’t about to give up a left-foot gear lever and electric start. Chris says the bike is pleasant to ride. The higher bars offer good ergonomics and, even though it’s smooth, he says that it’s always good to ride a bike on which you can hear and feel the beat.

The Norton story post-commando is chequered, but it has a happy ending. Another reboot produced a 1992 IOM Tt–winning Wankel-engined race bike, a version of which sold to police forces as the Interpol, but it wasn’t a commercial success. In the late 1990s, American Kenny Dreer developed a new Norton in Oregon, which didn’t make it into production. UK businessman Stuart Garner bought the name and set up a new 1400m² factory at Donington Park to produce a version of the 961cc Dreer bike redesigned for production. It went on sale in 2010.

You can walk into a showroom today and buy several different versions of the 961 Commando, or a 650cc Atlas. However, you are too late to buy a road-going version of the 1200cc V4 Norton that TT legend John Mcguinness will campaign on the IOM this year. That limited-edition bike has already sold out.

You can’t keep a good Commando down.

“It is, above all else, a sporting riders’ motorcycle, and offers more sporting fun for that kind of rider than any other Superbike” — Cycle, June 1973