My buddy saw this pic on facebook, and thought I’d like it. Clearly a parts bin special from the dying days of NVT; according to the accompanying blurb, the frame was a modified one from the stillborn BSA Fury/ Triumph Bandit (it still bugs me why/how they got those 2 names the wrong way round!), with a more conventional BSA B50-type 500cc engine (and my how that’s been stretched from the 150cc Triumph Terrier!).
The Club's Michael Jackson apparently rated it as “the best British bike never made!”, and he may well have a point.
That gear linkage for left foot operation- presumably for the American market- looks a bit suspect to me, but of course this was only an initial prototype, of which there were apparently only ever 3. Interestingly, it was said to have an Isolastic-type setup.
Edit:
Apparently Sammy Millerhas one in his Museum, the one in the photo.I shall have to look for it on my next visit!
There is a B50 website (b50.org) with some further details on the bike and photos: the engine had to be tilted forward at that odd angle, both to accommodate that gear linkage, and also the rear Isolastic mount.
I gather the bike was featured in the February '04 issue of Classic Bike.
PS I have since found out it also featured in the January Classic Bike Guide: here is an extract which includes the article which sadly is Read-only and is not downloadable:
https://issuu.com/mortons-digital/docs/cbg_25122019-preview
A New Norton
That is a super looking bike. Perhaps because the front end is so much a Commando, even though the frame is smaller and non-isolastic.
I was/am so hoping that new-Norton will come up with a middleweight 400 to 500cc single. The new Enfield Himalayan 450 is quite nice but the Triumph 440 Scrambler better. Made in India, if only the Triumph had a Norton badge on it!
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It's Isolastic
Hi Norman
Whilst I agree a mid-weight Norton would be great, I'm not sure the numbers really stack up. Costs almost as much to develop and manufacture a tiddler as a big'un, but you can't charge the same for it. "New Norton" certainly seem to be positioning themselves at the top end of the market, and realistically can't ever break into the volume market with a cheap mid-range bike. I'm sure that the 650 Atlas twins would have sold quite well, but they have been canned.
BTW, that P92 is indeed isolastic as per my first posting, with 3 mounting points. In reality, it is a BSA machine in all but name, and that b50.org website on it points towards an electric starter being envisaged, apparently another reason to tip the engine unit forward.
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The 2 Roadholder articles..
..make fascinating reading: well worth it, if slightly depressing to think "if only"...
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Sales Potential?
To quote your comment. "Whilst I agree a mid-weight Norton would be great, I'm not sure the numbers really stack up."
Well, Royal Enfield have launched the Himalayan and Triumph the Scrambler 440. Both are probably planned for big sales across the Asian geographical area. We in Britain are a trivial add-on for sales. That Triumph is around £5,600 which is the same as a moderately good ES2. If Norton made the 440 it could conceivably capture the same market in S.E. Asia, and we trivial Britons, plus Europeans and Americans, could benefit. At £5,600 I would put one in the garage, with my 1950 ES2, just to look at and enjoy - might ride it as well :-)
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Hasn't Joe Seifert been…
Hasn't Joe Seifert been there, done that: https://www.nortonownersclub.org/models/supermono
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The modern BSA/Enfield…
The modern BSA/Enfield/Triumph singles are all interesting machines, available to us, as others have pointed out, as spin-offs from mass markets in Asia.
However, all three are rather different animals to Joe Seifert's Norton, which was more in the vein of Honda's XBR 500 than the supermono machines discussed here
https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2016/january/mcn-plus---7-brilliant-big-singles/
(an account which oddly omits Yamaha's very interesting SZR 660). No one has ever got rich attempting to serve the supermono market.
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was featured in Roadholders 414 and 415 (June-July 2022). I agree that it would have been an interesting machine with the thumping B50 motor but would have needed an electric starter to be acceptable as a user-friendly motorcycle. The motor might have needed work to make it reliable and oil-tight.