THE NORTON YOU NEVER KNEW
It was 2011. I was visiting a cousin in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England. Knowing I was an old bike fan, her hubby Simon told me of a local friend who owned a unique Norton motorcycle. That was all he knew. I grabbed my Nikon and hurried over.
In the driveway of a brick-built suburban home stood a blue motorcycle with a decal indicating that it had a rotary engine. But instead of the distinctive bulbous outline and generous cooling fins of Norton’s air-cooled rotary engine, I saw water hoses and a radiator. It was, I discovered, the fabled factory development hack “Ten-ten”.
Serial number R1010 was the machine the Norton factory used to develop both its air-cooled and liquid-cooled rotary engines. Presumably, 1010 would have housed the aircooled twin-rotor engine used to power first the Interpol II and then the naked Norton Classic. In its later iterations, it would have been used to develop the liquidcooled Commander and even the
