It may look like an old Norton Commando, the one launched back in 2015 by the ‘old’ and now disgraced Norton regime. But ‘new’ Norton reckons almost 40 percent of the bike is completely new, and over 300 components have either been changed or redesigned.
This is a big step for ‘new’ Norton, the Solihull-based company that’s been revitalised under the ownership of Indian manufacturer TVS Motors. Almost $180 million has been invested to bring Norton back from the depths, and the new Commando is one of the first fruits of that enormous financial commitment.
When TVS took over, it looked at Norton’s existing bikes – the Commando and V4S superbike – listened to criticism and stripped both bikes back to the bare bones. Through vigorous testing, new Norton identified the problem areas and then set out to rectify them.
While the old Commando was designed and built under the Stuart Garner regime with a limited budget, tooling and staff, under TVS Norton recruited new management, skilled engineers, designers and development riders and installed them in a bespoke, state-of-the-art production facility before commencing production of the new bike.
So in many ways, this is the Commando
