It is possible to get bracing added to a ’68 model but you’ll be hard pressed to find one that survived to the modern day without it’s frame already being strengthened. All bikes from 1969 onwards had slightly modified frames to alleviate this risk, however if you have a ’68 model you should know that an additional top tube was added in ’69 as the area around the headstock actually broke on some bikes. The most significant of which was that the frame was prone to bend under certain conditions. This was the first year of construction for the Norton Commando and so as you might imagine, there were some teething issues. This sub-12 month deadline was extremely tight however the team pulled it together and created the Commando – a bike that would go on to win Motor Cycle News “Machine of the Year” award for 5 successive years from 1968 to 1972.
In 1966 the Villiers company bought Norton from AMC and renamed itself Norton-Villiers, they hired the engineers Dr Stefan Bauer (formerly of Rolls Royce), John Favill, Bernard Hooper and Bob Trigg, then gave them the deadline of the 1967 Earls Court Motor Show to have an all-new bike ready to show to the world. The story of the conception of the Commando has all the hallmarks of a feel-good Hollywood film – a small team of engineers with a minimal budget, limited resources, and an outdated engine set about creating a motorcycle that would go on to become, for many in the ‘60s, ‘70s and today, the most desirable motorcycle in the world.Īll this despite the pre-unit construction (for those unfamiliar with pre-unit, it just means that the transmission and engine are two separate parts, rather than unit construction where they’re both part of the same case), the relatively antiquated engine from the Norton Atlas and a budget significantly below that of its arch rivals. The Norton Commando is a motorcycle that even today, over 50 years after it was first introduced, lives on as one of the most iconic British motorcycles of all time.
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