NORTON GOES GLOBAL
Norton. Where they are today, and where they’re going. Alan Cathcart interviews Stuart Garner, the company’s owner
Norton. Where they are today, and where they’re going. Alan Cathcart interviews Stuart Garner, the company’s owner
The news that John McGuinness, winner of 23 Isle of Man TT races in the past 20 years since his first in 1999, will be fit to ride for the Norton factory team in the 2019 TT, makes the historic British marque a serious contender for victory on the Island. This would be for the first time since another TT legend, the late Steve Hislop, scored Norton’s last win there in the 1992 Senior TT on the ABUS Norton Rotary racer. It gives an added boost to the fortunes of the British company, which Norton Motorcycles owner Stuart Garner is in the process of taking to another level via what appears to be a carefully planned global expansion programme.
Garner, 50, is the man who, exactly a decade ago, bet big on reviving Britain’s most sporting motorcycle marque as a series production entity – and he now looks set for the bet to pay off. Since acquiring the Norton trademark in October 2008 from its previous American owner, Olly
Curme – obtaining with it the prototype Commando 961 streetbike design Curme had commissioned from the USA’s No.1 Norton guru, Oregon-based Kenny Dreer – Garner has worked tirelessly in putting the born-again Norton Motorcycles firm back on the map. This has resulted in around 5000 Commando 961 motorcycles so far built and delivered to customers around the world under his ownership.
Doing so has entailed shifting from a compact start-up 8000ft² factory, housing a dozen employees, into a six times larger 45,000ft² modern annexe to a 229-year old stately home. Norton reside today at Donington Hall, nestling in an 80-acre estate in the heart of England, with a major international airport and Grand Prix race track right next door, and a ten-times larger workforce.
It’s also involved returning to the Isle of Man seven years running to race in the TT, with Aussie rider Josh Brookes lapping the 37¾-mile TT Course at 131.745mph in 2018 en route to fifth place in the 2018 Senior TT. He was mounted on the Norton SG6-2 racebike, using a factory-supported version of Aprilia’s three-time World Superbike champion RSV4 motor. Teammate John McGuinness was forced to sit out the race due to a long-term injury, but ‘McPint’ is now finally match fit again, and as proof won the Senior Classic TT last August on his comeback ride on a Paton 500.
Moreover, deliveries have finally commenced of Norton’s flagship 1200cc V4 SS and V4 RR roadbikes, and its new family of 650 twins, launched at the NEC Show last November, allowing the reborn Norton Motorcycles to shift into top gear. Talking to Stuart Garner in his Donington Hall office uncovered how this came about, and where the company’s now headed.
AC Stuart, Norton seems poised to really put on a spurt in growth. How many people have you got working here in the factory, which seems to have grown a bit since I was here last time?
SG Our workforce here at Donington now numbers 120, including a dozen new apprentices. They serve a roughly two-year apprenticeship before being fully employed in the business, as most of them do choose to become. We still have the original 45,000ft² factory, but we’ve already added another 10,000ft² for the separate shop where we do all our welding and fabrication. Then with the several new models coming through, we have another 12,000ft² of covered space being built right now, which we’re hoping to occupy by April. This will house new dedicated production lines for the 650 twins and the V4s, leaving the Commandos still being built in the main factory.
AC How many Nortons did you build last year?
SG We delivered just under 1000 bikes in 2018. But obviously, as the V4s come in, we’re on the verge of a substantial increase in volume, and the 650 twins will also start production in April – hence the addition to the factory. We’re right at the start of a really hectic couple of years of growth, all based on firm orders under deposit. We still have the scars from 2011 of going to market too early with the first Commandos, which was really thanks to pressure which we put on ourselves, and was a ridiculous thing to do – but we didn’t know any better at the time. We were new in The Norton V4 SS: ‘All 200 examples of the limited edition SS version are under deposit, selling for £44,000. Probably 50% are UK orders, and the rest from all over the world.’ the industry, and we thought we were doing the right thing getting the bike out quickly to satisfy everybody who was agitating to get hold of one. It was exactly the wrong thing to do, so the reason we were six months late this time around getting the V4 production started was entirely that – we’ve learnt from our mistakes, and now press the button to start production only when we’re ready.
AC How many V4s have you delivered so far?
SG Just a few dozen, because we’re right at the start of producing them – although some lucky customers got theirs for Christmas! But we’ve spoken to all of our first 200 buyers, and it’s been really wonderful how supportive they are. People talk about Italian bike owners buying into the family, but our Norton customers have done just the same. At the NEC Show they’d come up and say, ‘Hi Stuart, how’s it all going? I just want to tell you we’re enjoying the journey.’ We speak to them regularly, and tell them we’ve done this, we’ve done that, we’ve got this to do, and so on. If you’ve let people down in terms of delivery dates, you think you’re going to get your arse kicked – but actually, if you’re honest and you speak to them up front, they’re travelling on the journey with you. They understand you’re a small company, but that they’re buying something quite unique, and they’re content to wait until we’re ready to build their bike.
AC How many orders have you got for the V4?
SG Several hundred, with all 200 examples of the limited edition SS version under deposit, selling for £44,000. Probably 50% are UK orders, and the rest from all over the world. We’re manufacturing those first, and then we’ll start on the RR, retailing for £28,000 in the UK. We’ve already received over 300 deposits for that bike, so most of 2019 production is essentially spoken for. We’re setting up to build about 500 V4s a year, which feels about right for the business and the model. I think if we tried to make more than that, maybe we’d take away the V4’s exclusivity a bit.
AC Why were you half a year late starting deliveries of the V4s?
SG It was all about the engine. I can’t overemphasise just how big a job it is designing and developing an all-new motor, especially a 1200cc V4 giving 200+bhp. But for me, the only way of bringing Norton back right was to develop our own engine – we couldn’t have had anybody else’s in it. OK – we‘ve been racing the Aprilia V4 motor in our TT bikes, but that was only to get Norton back in racing where it belongs, and to learn about designing a chassis to harness that sort of performance. Simon Skinner (Norton’s Head of Design) and I were adamant we must have our own chassis, our own engine, our own electronics – we needed to own the platform in order to be faithful to Norton’s heritage. But as always in life, the bits that you think might be hard have generally been OK. And the bits that we didn’t really think would cause any hiccups have been absolute horrors, like some quite basic engine castings, for example. We’ve frequently had to go beyond our existing supply chain for this engine.
So we had some delays in physically getting the engines together, and then the engine calibration was another headache.
I wouldn’t say it was more difficult than we thought, but we didn’t want to get it wrong. As I said, Skinner and I still have the bruises of 2011-2012 when some of those early Commandos went out too early, and it bit us really badly. So now we’re probably oversensitive in making sure the bike’s right.
AC How important was it for the evolution of the Norton 1200 V4 to have the 1000cc V4 Aprilia motor in the TT racebike?
SG Well, we got a bit of stick originally for putting an Italian engine in a Norton. But seven years ago with the SG1 that you rode for us on that demo lap in the TT, we’d already started working on the Norton V4 chassis design. Then the following year we went to a tubular frame that’s reasonably similar to and certainly consistent with the V4 road bike today. So you can safely say that today’s 1200 V4 Norton streetbike has had seven years of ongoing development racing in the TT. The chassis geometry and weight distribution that we’ve been working on for the past six years with the Aprilia V4 is very similar to what it is on the streetbike with our own engine, which is a 72º V4 motor whereas theirs is a 65º V4, so not a huge difference.
AC Will there be only a single-seat sports version of the 1200 V4? Or will you do a twoseater, or maybe even a sports tourer? Will there be any other V4 products besides the SS/RR racers-with-lights?
SG Yes, there will. It’s a huge investment for Norton to develop the V4, so you can expect to see other model derivatives coming from the same engine platform. But I doubt this will include a two-seater, because it’s very unlikely we’d make a tourer, even a sports tourer. It’s just not Norton. But I do fancy doing a big, stonking naked bike, as an ultramodern throwback to a 1980s muscle bike, with a stacked exhaust and a sit up and beg riding position – a comfortable muscle bike. On the other hand, Simon Skinner wants to produce a very modern café racer, and if you can imagine taking the fully faired V4, removing the bodywork, and creating something between a streetfighter and a café racer, it’s never really been done with a modern bike in a purist form.
AC At the NEC Show last November, you also launched a pair of modern liquid-cooled dohc eight-valve Norton 650 twins, to pretty much universal acclaim. What exactly are they, and when will they be available?
SG We’ve revived the old Atlas nametag from Norton’s back catalogue as the generic family name for all the 650 twins with a dual purpose off-road capable slant. So we’ll be making an Atlas Nomad and an Atlas Ranger, with the Nomad being slightly more roadfocused, with lower suspension and a more street-capable tyre. The taller Ranger has longer travel suspension, and more off-road friendly rubber, reinforced handlebar and other bits and bobs to make it more off-road capable. Prices will be £11,995 on the Ranger, and £9,995 on the Nomad, so sub £10k, which Skinner and I felt we needed to hit as it takes Norton more into the mainstream than we’ve ever done since we took over.
Immediately, on day one of the NEC Show, it brought another group of customers to Norton – people we would never have seen with a £15k or £20k bike. We’re pitching it to a Ducati Scrambler customer, a Triumph Scrambler rider – maybe somebody who might have looked at a CCM, who wants an affordable modern classic with the Norton name on the tank.
The engine is of course a bank of cylinders from our 1200 V4 stroked out a little on the crank to take it to a 650 twin, for a bit more rideability from a slightly bigger motor. That engine has already been fully tooled up, so deliveries will start in April, if everything goes OK. For a small business like ours to have two brand new engines in development at the same time was an incredibly big financial commitment, and potentially very risky. But they’ll be quite different from our existing core product, the pushrod air/oil-cooled Commando, which will of course stay in production, and will be unaffected by these two new platforms.
AC So how about fully on-road 650 twins?
SG There will be several of these, but for the first one we’ve created the Superlight model which John McGuinness will race in the Lightweight TT against the Patons and Kawasakis, and we’ll be offering a street legal version of his racebike. We had a really surprising reaction to it at the NEC, because it’s been hugely more positive than we ever thought it would be. It’ll be a bike I’d buy, because one of my last bikes was a Suzuki RGV250, but two-stroke race replicas are history nowadays, and you see the 600cc Supersport class dying, too. Yet when we displayed the Superlight people were all over it, and we’ve had several orders, which is very encouraging.
AC What price are you selling it for?
SG We’re pricing it at £19,995 in Euro 4 compliant form, so a true racer with lights. If anyone wants to race one themselves, I think we’ll offer a turnkey race version. However, depending where it’s to be raced, it may well need a homologation certificate. But that can all be sorted out.
AC Will you build the Superlight first in order to be able to get some of them ready for the Isle of Man TT this year, or will the Atlas models enter production first?
SG We’re scheduled to start producing the street legal Atlas models first in April, and then we’re hoping to get just a handful of Superlights ready to do the Lightweight TT in June.
AC So the V4s and the 650 twins are your two new platforms, but what plans do you have for the Commando?
SG The Commando is kind of like the gift that keeps giving – it’s 50 years young, and it keeps on selling, so it’s been a fabulous platform for us. But the Eurocrats have got their eyes on it, so we don’t know where we’ll be with it under Euro 5. It is Euro 4 compliant, and I remember talking with you about this, and registering concern that Euro 4 would kill it off, but it didn’t – and we’ve got the air/oilcooled 961 through Euro 4. They still haven’t finalised exactly what Euro 5 will be, but we’ve got an idea of it and we’re close – but whether the bike’s got survivability in its present form is open to question. But even if we have to redesign the platform for Euro 5, it’s 100% certain we’ll have a Commando in the range for the foreseeable future. It’s a key ingredient in the Norton brand.
AC In principle, would you liquid cool it to make it Euro 5 compliant?
SG Yes, absolutely – though you have to be really careful with this. If your range stays uniquely retro, you’ll be in a bloody museum any moment – hence the V4s and 650 twins – and if you’re not careful, the cost of investment to make your retro bikes modern, should fashions change and people fall out of love with retro, will bankrupt you. So you’ve got to have a leg in modern as well as a leg in retro, as we do at the moment.
AC I understand you’ve done a deal with Zongshen to manufacture a version of the 650 engine in China. Could you please tell me about this?
SG Yes, that’s true. We met Zongshen who were looking for a midsize engine that was Euro 4 compliant, and Euro 5 capable. It’s really interesting when you see some of the companies there which are a billion dollar business, but at that point, they hadn’t made a Euro 4 product. But last year I believe they built 4.5 million engines and 2.5 million complete motorcycles, so it’s an incredible business.
AC Where is their factory?
SG Just south of Beijing. So it’s a huge concern with many levels of engineering and manufacturing capability, but not specifically
engineering and homologation knowhow. Anyway, once we got talking it was clear that they needed – well, help is the wrong word, Alan, when it’s such a big company, but they wanted a partner to help them look at Euro 4 and Euro 5 homologation for a twincylinder engine.
Once we started chatting it was quite interesting that none of the bigger Western manufacturers would work with them, because they‘d see that as helping a competitor. Yet Norton can do so since they’re a small engine / mass-market manufacturer, and we’re a large engine / niche-market company. So we’re very happy to work with them, and vice versa, and with our 650 twin coming along, that was a perfect way for them to develop a premium engine at the high end of their range. So we’ve negotiated a non-brand deal, an engineering deal only – so they have no rights to use the Norton name – under which we have given them certain design rights over a special version of our 650 engine, with engineering support from Norton under which our engineers will go to China to help them get that engine into a new generation of Zongshen models. So it’s a deal which works really well for Norton, and all the money we earn from it gets reinvested back into the Norton brand here in Britain.
AC Is your deal to get money up front from Zongshen, and then a royalty on each engine built?
SG Of course! We had a mutually satisfactory negotiation, leaving a fair deal on the table for both companies, which I believe creates the opportunity for a fruitful long-term partnership.
AC So how much money up front?
SG Plenty! We’ve not released a number, but it’s in the millions of sterling. It’s a lot of money, and they’ve paid it all in advance. The financials that this collaboration with Zongshen bring to Norton underpin all of our investment here at Donington Hall. It gives us a long-term future, a better balance sheet, and makes us a more fundable business, because all of the money that comes into Norton, stays in Norton. So we don’t have a shareholder base that just pulls all the money out and buys a yacht and goes cruising in the Caribbean. You know better than anyone that I’ve been here for ten years building the balance sheet and the business generally. And as exceptional income like this comes into Norton, it stays in, and gets reinvested back into the business. So it actually helps us grow the company in becoming more sustainable.
AC Are you still the majority owner of Norton?
SG Yes, absolutely. I personally hold 86% and change of Norton Motorcycles equity, which has been the same since Day One – we’ve not diluted the equity in the company in any way since then.
AC Who owns the rest?
SG Three individuals who are all good friends, each with a small single digit percentage shareholding.
AC Talking about other versions, are you still planning to develop a supercharged version of the 650 Twin?
SG Yes, indeed. We’re now committed to making that bike, from which the computer shows we’ll have around 170bhp, without excessive boost. Actually, the supercharged engine is already running. I think we’ll get the chassis by the end of February – it’s a carbon frame! We’re expecting the first prototype to be completed in March or April, and we’ll probably float that out at the shows at the end of this year, with production to start in the spring of 2020. It’ll be a rocket ship, by the way – a 650 twin with superbike performance!
However, we know we need to be careful, in that we’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing the V4, and the Superlight, and the 650s, and now we need to sell some bikes. There’s a beautiful linear Norton model
range in prospect, but commercial necessities dictate that you must start earning money from the bikes that you’ve developed, before you start thinking about bringing the next model to market. After the supercharged twin we’ll have to draw breath – what we don’t want to do is have 20 models in the market and only make ten of each because the factory’s jammed full, which would be pretty foolish. However, it’s been important for Norton’s overall viability to focus on developing the 650 twin range as the basis of a separate entry level range of models.
AC Stuart, it’s now exactly ten years since you acquired Norton. Are you where you hoped you would be with it?
SG It’s gone very, very quickly. I think in many ways we’re nowhere near where we thought we’d be, because we hoped we’d have delivered more bikes by now, but in many other ways we’ve smashed it out of the park to a level we never ever thought we’d have reached. We’ve brought the Norton brand back to the marketplace and in doing so taken it to a new level, with an entirely UK-developed 200bhp 1200cc V4 superbike that’s fully worthy of the Norton name, let alone the range of modern 650 twins we’re now bringing to market. I’m really very proud of our whole team for having got us this far – but the best is yet to come!
AC However, what you’ve achieved with such a historic brand inevitably makes Norton an attractive target for acquisition. Are you interested in selling it or floating it on the stock market?
SG It’s a flat no to that question, and we have inevitably already had offers. I think I’m in a different place than other motorcycle manufacturers, in that as you know having been the first person to interview me back ten years ago when it all started at the height or maybe the depths of the GFC in 2008, I didn’t get into this for the money. I was a happy lad before I bought Norton, with the game farm in South Africa and my fireworks business in the UK both making good money. We’ve got the business to where it is now – we’re not making any money yet, but we’re having the time of our lives, and it looks from our order book as if we’re finally going to eliminate the red ink from our balance sheet.
But if I sold Norton for telephone numbers of sterling or dollars or euros, what would I do with the money? Because I’ve already paid to be in John McGuinness’s garage at the Isle of Man TT, or to have the fastest and most powerful British streetbike yet made to ride around the hills and dales of Derbyshire – I’m doing that anyway, so I don’t know what I’d do with the money, and therefore, why sell it?
And then the other reason is, we’ve all put so much bloody time and effort into the business, it would be like selling one of my kids, and you wouldn’t do that, would you? Anyway, we’ve got an obligation to the welders here at Norton, to the engineers, to the apprentices that we’ve taken on, and I’ll be beggared if I’ve put ten years into this to sell it to a venture capitalist who rapes it over the next three years, doubles his money, loads it with debt, and then it goes bust and puts everyone out of work. What a waste that would be.
So I do think that for Norton to be successful long term, it needs to be privately owned and managed with a very tight equity base around that owner/manager. When you look around and you see some successful businesses out there today that have been successful for a long period of time, the corporates in their pin-striped suits have been kept out the way, and strong family ownership has seen the company flourish, not merely survive. Look at JCB just up the road for example – a great modern British success story under family ownership, same as Triumph. So the Garner family is in Norton for the long term, and I look forward to speaking to you 20 years from now about how Norton has built on where we are ten years down the line!