The highlight of last week’s show in Birmingham was the unveiling of three new Nortons, writes Geoff Hill
‘YOU KNOW, son,” my dad once said, “there is no sweeter sound in the whole wide world than the song of a Norton belting up a hill and cresting the rise.”
Now, Dad is 84 and hasn’t ridden a Norton since he raced one in the 1950s, but before long he may get to hear that song again, with not one but three new Nortons unveiled at the big show in Birmingham’s NEC last week.
It’s a year since businessman Stuart Garner restarted the legendary marque at a factory in Leicestershire. Since then, he and his staff have burnt more than their fair share of midnight oil to produce the limited edition Commando 961 SE.
If you’ve got your eye on one of those, you’re already too late: all 200 were snapped up before they came off the production line. The good news is Garner proudly unveiled two more models in Birmingham: the basic Sport and the Cafe Racer. Both share the same air-cooled 961cc parallel twin of the SE, but the Sport has non-adjustable forks and fewer carbon fibre components, while the Cafe Racer has dropped clip-on bars and headlight cowling.
They all share the same basic silhouette, which looks fabulous, either in classic black with gold pinstriping, red with gold, silver with red and black, or the Cafe Racer’s revival of Norton yellow with pinstriping.
The SE sold for £15,999 in the UK; the Cafe and Sports are £13,495 and £11,995 respectively. Euro prices and Republic dealers are yet to be announced, since the firm is still setting up its network, but as soon as I get my hands on one for a test ride, you’ll be hearing all about it.
Riders who enjoy retro bikes were spoilt rotten at the NEC, with the launch of the Royal Enfield Woodsman EFI, the latest UK-designed variant of the Bullet to be powered by the new fuel-injected unit construction engine. Like the original Woodsman produced by Royal Enfield from 1955 to 1959 and sold in the US under the Indian brand, it is a 499cc single with high bars and a raised exhaust. There the similarities end; the new Woodsman also has a solo seat, handy mini luggage rack, rear-set footrests and an alloy bash plate.
The all-new engine comes with electronic fuel injection and a five-speed gearbox. A far cry from the Bullet 500 I rode back from Delhi in 1998, although still with an impressively economical 80mpg, which means a tank range of over 200 miles before switching to reserve. It’s due in the new year.
At the other end of the scale, BMW’s new S1000RR, five years in the planning and two years in the testing, looks set to shake up the traditional four kings of the one-litre superbike class: the Yamaha R1, the Kawasaki ZX-10R, the Honda Fireblade and the Suzuki GSX-R1000.
According to legendary bike journalist Kevin Ash: “It’s astonishing. Possibly the best superbike you’ll be able to buy next year.”
It’ll be a year before Kawasaki replies with the latest version of the ZX-10R, and the version at the show had a series of mostly cosmetic stand-in tweaks to give a more compact look.
Most attention at the Kawasaki stand was centred on the new Z1000, a naked streetfighter taking on the Triumph Speed Triple, Ducati Streetfighter and KTM Super Duke.
Prices are still to be announced, but expect to see its muscular form in showrooms from mid-January.
From Honda comes the new VFR1200 sports tourer, which I’ll be reporting on next week. As for Yamaha, it has changed the strange pink frame on the R1 to a more stylish black one, but it probably takes the view that the R1, introduced earlier this year with a revolutionary Rossi-inspired cross-plane crank that made The Doctor even quicker around corners, was so good it didn’t need to be changed. And it’s a good point: last week it was named MCN magazine’s Bike of the Year.
From Europe, Ducati had the new Hypermotard 796, the light and frisky little brother of the 1100, but the big attraction was the firm’s remodelled Multistrada, designed to address criticisms of its predecessor: a great bike that looked clunky. It had blistering performance and a more comfortable riding position than its stablemates, and now it’s got stylish looks to match, with some valve tweaking to give smoother power and better mpg.
There was more engine tweaking from BMW, with an extra 5bhp and a smoother torque curve in the otherwise unchanged R1200GS. And why would they change anything else on what’s now the bestselling adventure tourer of all time?
It looked like a scooter compared with the Concept6, a six-cylinder beast which may appear on the road but whose engine will at the very least find its way into a Beemer tourer.
In any case, the sight of hundreds of bikes and thousands of fans thronging the NEC was a welcome antidote to fears for the future of the industry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just empty the piggy bank to see if I can rustle up the deposit on a Norton Cafe Racer.