"Norton Villiers Triumph" Viable proposition, or a house of cards?
Author: Brad Jones
Publisher: Spangle Publishing Email: juxta7l@aol.com
Hardback, 205 x 260mm (portrait); 147 pages with over
140 photographs and illustrations. £27.50
Brad Jones is probably the first author to attempt to describe the disastrous few years which saw the industry transformed from export winner to near receivership. Norton Villiers Triumph
(NVT), part of the attempt to rebuild a viable British industry from those remnants, often merits little more than a few pages at the end of books that are more interested in the prosperous golden era.
The story of the Norton Villiers Triumph company embraces the initial takeover of BSA' s motorcycle division, the subsequent battle with the trade unions for control and ownership ofTriumph's factory at Meriden, followed by the subsequent refusal of the Government of the day to honour the promised funding. Along the way, the motorcycles that also make up the NVT story are encountered, as is a year by year account of the John Player Norton racing effort and the Norton Cosworth Challenge.
While the employees were the highest paid of the NVT group, Meriden was also the most militant with their politically-motivated shop stewards no doubt inspired and encouraged by the
TGWU's closet communist leader Jack Jones.
It is interesting to read of the development of the very promising BSAspeedway machine using the B50 motor that had also been used successfully in motocross and endurance racing. Sadly, funds were withdrawn from the project. Several interesting roadster prototypes were built using a rubber-mounted B50
500cc engine using Norton's Isolastic system in a Bandit/ Fury frame. By all accounts it was an excellent fast middleweight machine that could have been produced easily and quickly, but was never proceeded with. No explanation is given, but some say the lack of an electric starter put off continental riders not wishing to ruin their shoes!
Motorcycles covered include: BSASpeedway B50; P92 Isolastic B50; Triumph
TISO and Tl60; Norton 76;
Wulf stepped-piston twostroke twin; AJS Stormer; John Player Norton Commandos; Norton Cosworth Challenge; Easy-Rider, Rambler and
Ranger plus the BSAvariants and an overview of the motorcycles NVT inherited.
Author Jones deserves full credit for the huge amount ofNVT literature that he has managed to reproduce, as well as a lot of time researching company archives. He also includes anecdotes from employee Pat Slinn, who makes some disparaging comments about well-respected NVT director William Colquhoun. Before publishing these remarks, why didn't Jones contact Colquhoun and check his version of events? This would have been a very good opportunity to learn a few more facts about NVT.The same could also be said about European sales director Mike Jackson, who, while often quoted, was never interviewed - a sad omission to an interesting book that asks more questions than it is able to answer.
Book reviewed by
Jonathan Hill