You were asking

Should I ship my Norton?

I’ve inherited a water-cooled Norton rotary motorcycle which hasn’t run for years and has only about 3000 miles on the clock. It’s in the UK at present and I haven’t seen it, but need to know if it’s worth the expense of shipping Stateside.

Brad Bradshaw, email, USA

Development of the rotary motorcycle engine began at the Umberslade Hall design centre run by the BSA Group under the guidance of David Garside, initially with (in theory) a huge team at his disposal.

After Umberslade Hall was shut down, Garside’s development work was relocated to Kitts Green, Birmingham and run on a shoestring. Reports suggest he started development by fitting a Fitchel and Sachs 294cc rotary snowmobile engine to a BSA Starfire chassis. The machine worked but proved underpowered, leading Garside to design and develope a 588cc twin rotor engine.

David Garside stated in a later interview he believed no British motorcycle maker could compete with the Japanese giants on their terms – instead, the solution for him was to develop a totally different motorcycle, with twin rotor rotary engine.

Finally, 15 years after the project began,