Norton Is Back, Baby! And They’re Bringing New Bikes to the US

• Norton Motorcycles has big plans for US sales and quality bikes.

• The company has been through a lot since its founding in 1898, but anyone who remembers great motorcycles like the Commando 850 has reason to hope.

• Look for US sales to launch next year, with six completely new motorcycles launched over three years—all internal combustion, followed by electric models.

I don’t know if you were around in the 1970s or so, but Norton was considered a mighty cool motorcycle in those days, sort of the Vincent Black Shadow of its time. An 850 Commando was a little like James Bond back then: British suave, with power and potency to step up whenever necessary.

That may have been peak Norton, depending on how you looked at those things. The company has been around in one form or another since 1898. In that time there have been 13 owners, give or take, and at least one bankruptcy.

But now Norton is owned by mega-motorcycle-manufacturer TVS, the third largest motorcycle maker in India, a country of 1.5 billion people, many of whom get around on two wheels. TVS makes 4.5 million motorcycles, mopeds, and scooters a year.

It also manufactures certain BMW motorcycles and other makes, so however many Nortons it does build—currently it’s making a few hundred a year—will be like a small boutique factory offering for a company that large. Yet TVS has said it looks at Norton as the company’s crown jewel.

TVS has committed £200 million, or $260 million, in new product development, facilities, research and development and what the new owners call “world-class quality engineering.”

“The new Norton motorcycles will follow the company’s philosophy of ‘Design, Dynamism, and Detail,’” Norton said.

All of which bodes well for us, the moto-few who remember the glory years of the marque and are looking forward to its promising future.

Norton plans to introduce six new models in three years, with the first coming next year. There are no specifics on any of the six yet—Norton wants to keep us interested, but executives have said the new bikes will all carry the spirit of Nortons past.

“We really want to keep the excitement for when we show you the vehicle,” said Sudarshan Venu, managing director of Norton’s parent company, TVS Motor Company. “But it’s in the advanced stages of engineering and testing. It’ll really reflect the values of Norton but in a very modern way. It’ll have unique design, great drivability, and tremendous detail.”

TVS bought Norton in 2020 for just $21 million, about the cost of a few nice houses in LA. At the time, the company owed some money and some motorcycles to various entities, including buyers who had paid for but not received their motorcycles. To its credit, TVS/Norton is building those bikes for those buyers, and continues to offer two models for sale in the UK:

Commando 961 — Powered by an air-and-oil-cooled upright parallel twin making 77 hp at 7,250 rpm and 60 lb-ft at 6,200 rpm with a 10:1 compression ratio and a curb weight of 507 pounds, all starting at $22,109.

V4SV — Powered by a Norton 72-degree liquid-cooled 1200-cc V4 with 13.6:1 compression ratio making 185 hp at 12,000 rpm and 92 lb-ft at 9,000 rpm, 454 pounds curb weight, for $57,235.

Don’t fall in love with either of those bikes, though, since neither one will be among the Nortons that land on our shores next year. I got to sit on several of them whilst visiting the Norton stand at the Goodwood Festival of Speed last week. They felt substantial. They reminded me of a Vincent Black Shadow I once got to ride. I imagined they’d be fun, but how much can you tell that much just sitting on a bike?

Trying to pry details about what exactly the coming models will be like, from Venu or anyone at Norton, went nowhere. At least nowhere specific.

“There are many different segments of the market which are exciting, and the idea is that for us as a brand, as we look forward with this brand, to find Norton-ess in the products that we do, and that will define which segments we enter at which time. But the criticalness will be to have customers really enjoy the future of Norton with those values, but in a very modern way.”

Norton’s German-born CEO Robert Hentschel and other executives have said in the past that Norton will be all-electric by 2040. But none of the six initial models of the new Norton will be electric, Venu said.

CEO Hentschel wasn’t at Goodwood, but in April he told motorcycle.com: “I think you have two segments in the electrification sector. One is the segment up to 40 kW (54 hp), which is targeted at younger riders and at providing mobility, and this has an exponentially growing volume. And then there is the higher performance segment of about 60-70 kW (81-94 hp) with liquid-cooled batteries, and I see a delay in the volume growth in that segment.”

Norton can’t afford to lose money on any models, even with TVS backing, so they aim for the cheaper bikes first, at least when it comes to EVs.

But remember, that’s for the electric bikes, which aren’t among the first batch coming to America. The first six new Nortons we see will be internal combustion all the way. We just don’t know how much internal combustion. We’re all just reading tea leaves right now. (Though the Indians do make the best tea, so there’s hope there.)

How do they plan to reach American buyers?

“I think today with digital marketing, it’s all about being in touch with the customer in his environment,” said Venu. “So I think digital connectivity is really the way to be in touch and get the message out for a portion of product-driven business. Physical touch is important. And I think events like this really foster that culture.”

So look for Nortons at motorcycle shows across the country.

“It all stands on top of fantastic bikes,” said Richard Arnold, non-executive director for Norton, who was most recently CEO of Manchester United. “The six models we’re planning on launching in the next three years are fantastic. The hard part about my job is not spilling the beans immediately on everything about how fantastic they are.”

He may be prejudiced in that regard, since he bought a V4 for himself. “I absolutely love it. It’s a sculpture. It’s a work of art, it’s fantastic to ride.”

During an interview at Goodwood, Arnold asked what I thought they had to concentrate on as they rebuilt everything and I told him, “Make sure they don’t leak.” He assured me they wouldn’t.

“The team that have come in from India, with the sort of scale of manufacture they’re capable of—and the standards for BMW-level engineering—all of it points to having fantastic bikes,” Arnold said. “And that’s the platform that all of this runs on.”

Don’t expect any radically different motorcycles among the six coming. There won’t be any Bimotos, Curtiss Electrics, or Peraves MonoTracers.

“It’s really important that not only do we make bikes that are recognizable as Norton, but also that span for generations to come, as well as appeal to the people that remember the bikes of the past. So building on the tradition for Norton of having beautiful design, incredible materials, innovation. And yeah, fantastic to ride.”

You’ll be able to ride them at your Norton dealer, as soon as they establish a US dealer network.

“Obviously, we don’t have a dealer distribution network as we sit here today. So that’s a very, very important piece of work.” Norton knows where it wants to put its US dealers—in places you can probably guess, they said—but they’re not revealing exact locations yet. The company wants the right dealer partners, ones who understand the brand, its history, and the thrill of riding.

Test rides will be an important part of the buying process.

“People want to be able to ride the bike, as well as to get looked after by the dealer once they buy one,” Arnold said. “Having the bikes available and having the last-mile customer service be every bit as high quality as the bikes themselves is very important to us.”

There will be local dealers in “all of the critical markets,” so look forward to that.

And now, all we have to do is wait one more year—if you ever longed for a Norton of your own. Or wandered through your Norton dealership until they threw your teenage keister out—that’s not too much to ask. Stay tuned.

Have you been a fan of Norton motorcycles? Would you consider buying one of the six new bikes coming to the US? Please comment below.