Norton’s great strength is its name. Can there be a more evocative marque in motorcycling, or one so steeped in the business of speed and the history of the Isle of Man TT? Unfortunately, Norton’s name is also its great weakness. The events of the recent past – the horror stories of unreliable and even unrideable bikes, and the appalling way both customers and staff were treated by former owner Stuart Garner – has left the new Norton regime with much repair work to do.
So how do you convince the world that you’ve changed? That the past is the past and the future will not only be different… but better? Well, in the case of Norton Motorcycles, you pretty much start again by building a state-of-the-art, multi-million-pound HQ and production facility, filling it with a skilled and highly-focused workforce and then completely re-engineering the machine that so dented the brand’s image over the last few tumultuous years.
The bike in question is the Norton V4SS, the 1200cc V4 that promised so much but which, under now-disgraced Garner, became mired in controversy. Customer deposits were paid but bikes weren’t delivered. There were issues with reliability, with quality, and even with safety.
In April 2020, TVS Motors bought the famous Norton brand, and in a short space of time (and in the midst of a global pandemic) the Indian motorcycle manufacturing giant restructured
