Roaring return! Norton bikes are back in the USA
BRITAIN’S iconic Norton Motorcycles is celebrating sending its first shipment of bikes to California for 30 years.
Norton is expanding production after getting extra bank funding. Further shipments are expected shortly to Canada, Japan and Australia.
Exports now represent more than 80 per cent of all sales.
Chief executive Stuart Garner said: ‘In the next couple of weeks we will export to Australia for the first time in 40 years.
‘We are also exporting to Japan, which is a bit like sending coals to Newcastle.’
The motorcycling business was founded in Birmingham in 1898 by James Lansdowne Norton as a manufacturer of ‘fittings and parts for the twowheel trade’.
The company was sold to businessman Garner in 2008 after it ran into serious financial trouble and he moved it to Donington Park, Leicestershire, in the same year.
In 2009, Garner went to Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where he set the world speed record for a rotary powered motorcycle at 173mph.
He told The Mail on Sunday he has been ‘living the dream’.
The business returned to production in 2010.
Last month it was revealed that Halfords had entered into an exclusive partnership agreement with Norton to support the motorcycle firm’s ambition to win the Isle of Man TT, which was staged last week.
Norton’s Head of Design Simon Skinner said the agreement with Halfords is ‘a long-term partnership deal.’