Norton’s name brings the Commando and the Manx to mind. Yet the factory also built a 250 cc learner twin called the Norton Jubilee, a police rotary and a sidecar hauler that went to war. Those machines rarely make the posters. Each one tells part of the company’s story better than its famous models do.
Here are seven of them, from a single-cylinder workhorse first built in 1908 to a hand-finished rotary sold in 1987. Every figure below comes from owners’ club records, museum notes, auction write-ups or period road tests.
1. 1908–1954 Norton Big 4
The Big 4 was the first Norton with an engine the company made itself. Earlier models had used Peugeot and other bought-in motors. Its side-valve single measured 633 cc, with an 82 mm bore and a long 120 mm stroke. After the war, Norton shortened that stroke and the engine became a 596 cc unit for its final years.
It earned its keep pulling sidecars. In 1924 a completely stock Big 4 outfit ridden by Phil Pike won the Maudes Trophy. Later, the Army ordered a version that drove the sidecar wheel too. According to Cybermotorcycle’s Big Four history, about 4,779 of those two-wheel-drive outfits were built between May 1939 and October 1942.
2. 1958–1966 Norton Jubilee
The Norton Jubilee arrived in late 1958 as the smallest twin the firm had built. It was also the first 250 cc Norton with a unit-construction engine, meaning the crankcase housed the four-speed gearbox. Underneath, though, it was a parts-bin bike. The frame, forks and brakes came from a 1957 Francis-Barnett Cruiser, a sister brand in the AMC group.
A Classic MotorCycle road test lists a claimed 16 bhp at 7,750 rpm from the over-square twin. Top speed was 75 mph. That suited the market, since UK learners were limited to 250 cc from 1960 unless they fitted a sidecar. As a result, the Norton Jubilee kept selling for about five years after the bigger Navigator arrived in 1961.
3. 1962–1968 Norton Atlas
Norton built the Atlas for Americans first. Importers the Berliner brothers wanted a big, flexible twin, so the 750 cc Atlas went on sale as an export-only model for 1962. British buyers had to wait until February 1964. Meanwhile, the factory kept compression low, at 7.6:1 on the first export bikes, to tame the bigger engine.
Even so, the shaking never went away. The Classic MotorCycle reports that a test rider’s hands swelled after one fast run. Cycle World’s 1965 test noted “quite spirited shaking.” In fact, Dr Stefan Bauer’s pillion ride on an Atlas led to the rubber Isolastic mounts of its replacement, the Commando. The last Atlas came off the line in January 1968.
4. 1962 Norton Dominator 650SS
The 650SS was the sports version of Norton’s Dominator twin, and it went straight for the Triumph Bonneville. It used a 646 cc engine with a downdraft head derived from the Domiracer racer, plus twin Amal carburetors. All of that sat in the famous Featherbed frame with Roadholder forks.
The magazines timed it hard. Hagerty’s look back says Motor Cycling recorded 119.5 mph one way in February 1962, while The Motor Cycle managed 118 mph. Better yet, the bike won the Thruxton 500-mile race three years running. Readers of Motor Cycle News also voted it machine of the year in 1962 and 1963.
5. 1967–1969 Norton P11
The P11 came from California dirt rather than a British drawing office. Bob Blair, a Norton distributor in California, suggested fitting the Atlas twin into a light Matchless G85CS scrambler frame. Importer Berliner pitched it to the AMC group, and engineers in Britain built a prototype that won approval.
The Norton Owners Club records that the first production P11, engine number 121007, was finished in March 1967. Americans nicknamed it the “Cheetah 45” for its acceleration, but it never went on sale in Britain. Later, the P11A brought low pipes, and the 1969 Ranger 750 closed the series, as the club’s hybrid history lists.
6. 1983–1988 Norton Interpol 2
Norton’s rotary engine went to work for the police before anyone else could buy one. The Interpol 2 used a 588 cc air-cooled twin-rotor Wankel. Club records show sales to police forces and the armed services from 1983. Around 30 forces bought just under 200 bikes, while the Ministry of Defence took about 150 more.
Hertfordshire Constabulary ran four. Former rider PC Paul Watts calls his bike smooth and quick on open roads in the Herts Past Policing archive. However, it overheated fast at parade speeds. Its total-loss oil system also needed daily topping up, and that bike seized when someone forgot.
7. 1987 Norton Classic
The Classic was the rotary Norton built for private buyers. It kept the air-cooled 588 cc twin-rotor engine from the police bikes, carried the factory code P43 and appeared in 1987. The Norton Owners Club’s rotary register says about 100 went on sale that year, though other counts give 101 or 105.
Few people noticed. webBikeWorld’s rotary history says dealers had trouble selling them, and many buyers did not know the bike existed. Before long, the water-cooled Commander replaced it, which left the Classic as a run of roughly 100 machines.
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