Norton Dominator De Luxe

For a brief few years, being covered up was all the fashion, as exampled by this superb Norton Dominator De Luxe.

In 2019, for the first time in many years, the Cardiff Classic Motorcycle Show at Llanishen School did not clash with any other events I wanted to go to, and I managed to get down there. I paid my £5 and walked into the show hall, to be straightaway stopped in my tracks by this stunning blue and white Norton. I wasn’t the only one who liked the eye-catching example, as it went on to win The People’s Choice Trophy at the end of the show. It also happened to be the first photograph I took at the event.

A few months later, I was at a Cardiff bike night on my Yamaha XS650 chopper, when I met Leif Williams, who has a similar XS-based chop. After talking, I found Leif only lived a few miles away from me in Aberdare. He asked if I could perhaps go over one day and take some photos of his bike for him. I duly did, and, after, I was invited back to his father’s house for coffee, as that is where the Yamaha lived. We pulled around the back to the garage and, there, stood inside, was the same stunning blue and white Norton from the Cardiff show. It turns out to be Leif ’s father Malcolm’s bike – and what’s more, Leif also has the same model but his is red and white. There’s a few more Nortons in the Williams family garage too, including a stunning twin cylinder café racer, a glistening yellow Fastback Commando and a sparkling 1964 650SS.

Fast forward a year and Covid got in the way, while

Leif decided to completely repaint his XS650, so we thought we’d take some new photos for Back Street Heroes magazine. I arranged a location up near the top lake in Clydach Vale, in the Rhondda Valley, in Wales. As it’s a hard place to find I arranged to meet at my house, to show him the way. Not only did Leif turn up on his

XS, but Malcolm also rode along on the Norton, so after I took the XS photos, I decided to take these pictures as well, of the glistening blue and dove grey (as Norton called it) half litre twin.

The De Luxe Dominator is something of an oddity, its styling borrowing heavily from the 1959-launched 250cc Norton Jubilee, a machine designed for and aimed at commuters, though its frame is the same Featherbed as was used by the likes of Geoff Duke to win TTs and world championships. Indeed, by the time the Dominator De Luxe was launched – 1960 – the Featherbed-framed Norton racers, although outpaced by the MV Agusta