The Donington Park Revival
During the late 1990s, Kenny Dreer of Oregon evolved from restoring and upgrading Commandos to producing whole machines. He modernised the design and in the early 2000s went into series production with the 961 Commando, but then suspended operations in April 2006.
After fifteen years of US ownership the Norton brand has now been secured by Stuart Garner, UK businessman and owner of Norton Racing Ltd. Garner is developing a new 15,000 sq ft (1,400 m2) Norton factory at Donington Park to develop the Dreer-based machine. The new Norton is a 961 cc (88 mm × 79 mm (3.5 in × 3.1 in)), air- and oil-cooled pushrod parallel twin with a gear-driven counterbalancer and a 270° crank (a concept pioneered on the Yamaha TRX850). The machine, a single-seat roadster styled after the earlier Commando models, has a claimed rear-wheel power output of 80 bhp (60 kW), giving a top speed of over 130 mph (210 km/h).
The new operation at Donington Park has gone into limited production producing a motorcycle based on the Kenny Dreer 961 Commando. The new motorcycle only shares the outline of the Dreer bike; all aspects of the motorcycle have apparently been re-designed in order to move into production. An updated and revised version of the rotary by Brian Crighton, an engineer who worked on the rotary machine in the 1990s is also being developed.
To expand the range of machines available, the company has acquired a significant interest in Maxsym Engine Technology with the aim of using the Maxsym parallel twin engine, originally developed for Moto GP as the basis of a new range of Norton motorcycles, with options including 1,200 cc Superbike, and 750 cc Supersport variants. In January 2011, it was announced the highly regarded designer Pierre Terblanche had departed Piaggio / Moto Guzzi to join Norton. In August 2011, UK minister Vince Cable announced that the Government was underwriting a £7.5 million bank loan to Norton, to promote secure cash flow for their export sales. Garner responded that this finance would allow Norton to double annual production from 500 to 1,000 machines.
Read more about this topic: Norton Motorcycle Company
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