Norton Motorcycles goes into administration I do hope for many reasons that they rise again especially the poor buggers who have paid deposits. Late last year something similar had happened due to late payment of taxes etc At the NEC they had an impressive stand and I chatted at some length with one of the young engineers who was involved with the road testing via a jaunt to Scotland. Edit: I forgot to mention that they launched a crowdfunding scheme but pulled as it went live as someone came forward with all the funds.
I hate to say it but this has been on the cards for a while now! It’s really sad, what’s even more sad is that the crook that ran it will probably still walk away a millionaire and Scott free!
I hope the workers there got paid, not shafted along with the customers who'd placed deposits for bikes that never appeared. Could John Bloor buy the company from the receivers, and set it up to run properly like he did with Triumph.?
In short yes I think so, but he has to work out whether the market exists for them, some bought Norton’s because they think triumph have become ‘mass produced’ so the business case would need to stack up
I think the two marques are too close to each other. He'd be investing money to compete directly with something else he already owns. There'd be all that R&D going into two different bikes, and he's only going to sell one of them...at least on an individual basis.
Norton and triumph are a world apart now, triumph moved with the times and sold mass produced bikes, Norton haven’t (shame as there sports bikes look and sound stunning) but nearly twice the price of others
Norton never intended to be like triumph. It’s a niche bike manufacturer. Limited runs of high performance exotica. The level of R&D has been phenomenal and that reflects in the price. Without doubt some of the best looking bikes around and early reports of the V4 and super light were really good. Shame we won’t get to find out. Probably likely those that were lucky enough to get a bike delivered will have a machine that’s now increased in value already!
Just been following industry news and seeing the "quality" of the Norton product on the rare occasion the bike actually made it off the production line. There is literally no defense of the brand, only the staff losing jobs and people out of pocket due to being misled. Norton, the heritage of mismanagement and going out of business. Twice.
Absolutely not defending the mismanagement of the business. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have good engineers working there and had a pipeline of R&D coming through. I’ve seen the bikes and the quality looked pretty awesome to me.
Yep, I saw a few 961's back when the local Indian dealer was carrying the Norton franchise. The quality & attention to detail was very impressive. Shame.
