The birth of the Commando
ROGER BARLOW WORKED AS A draughtsman and designer in the motorcycle and car industry, including spells at Ariel and BSA in the 1950s and 1960s, before moving on to Rover, where he found security, but not much of interest, but the chance to join Norton-Villiers in the 1960s to work on a new design sounded much better and he became part of the team at Wolverhampton in April 1967. “There were five designers, all enthusiasts, and we naturally supposed the new Norton would have a Featherbed frame. But we reckoned without Doctor Stefan Bauer.”
“He came from Rolls Royce, a small man who fired out ideas in a constant stream; some splendid, some not, but they all made you stop and think. His plan to discard the Featherbed frame met with amazement, but he said if, after 26 years, we couldn’t design a
