What might have been

With Norton's future now in the hands of Indian manufacturer TVS, the historic British marque seems set for a new and much more financially secure lease of life.

In the short term the Atlas 650 twins, the Nomad and Ranger developed under previous owner Stuart Garner by the man who today remains the company's Head of Design, Simon Skinner, are certain to form the bedrock of Norton's future range of models under TVS ownership. But it's also equally certain that TVS will develop a range of singles bearing the Norton badge, with a special eye on its Indian home market.

Indeed so, which makes it all the more timely to look back in the rear view mirror of history at the last time all three of these great British brands were still alive and - OK, not well exactly, but co-existing on the same two-wheeled life-support machine. Literally, in fact - for the single-cylinder Norton prototype code-numbered P92 (Project 92) which was conceived in 1974 but never reached production, consisted of a BSA motor carried in a Triumph I BSA frame using Norton's lsolastic engine mounts, with a Norton fuel tank carrying an 'NT'tank badge at first- later changed to read Norton.

Yesit was a parts bin special - but as Sammy Miller, owner today of one of the three such prototypes built, and which is on display in his eponymous Museum on England's South Coast, avers:'This was yet another missed opportunity by the numbskulls running what remained of the British motorcycle industry back then! Their engineers conceived and built this motorcycle four years before the SRSOYamaha streetbike appeared in 1978, which didn't have a balance shaft, so shook like crazy, and Honda didn't make the XRSOwith a counterbalancer until 1979. Think of how many tens of thousands of such bikes the Japanese sold. This was a huge open goal that Norton missed with this lsolastic prototype, which is largely devoid of any vibration:

Mike JacksonNVT's European Marketing Director