1971 Norton Commando 750 Roadster - 6-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article

Description

1971 Norton Commando 750 Roadster - 6-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
It’s amazing what fresh thinking or
a different point of view can do. Back
in 1967, just prior to the explosion of
the superbike craze, the Norton com-
pany and Villiers in England became
one, a marriage that would significantly
change things at Norton. A direct re-
sult of this union was the introduction
of a new model for Norton, the Com-
mando 750. Also contributing to the re-
designing of the 750 Atlas was, un-
doubtedly, the financial capabilities
which the merger also provided to
transform the ideas into reality.
This is not to suggest that the en-
gineers at Norton were retarding
change; they did have new ideas, many
of which actually made it to the produc-
tion line, but they never seemed to
make it as financial successes. In 1965
they introduced a 400 cc twin called the
Electra, Britain’s answer to the super-
successful Superhawk. But, as bad luck
had it, the response on these shores to
the Electra was anything but what its
name implied. If there was any elec-
tricity in America’s reaction, it could
have easily been surpassed by a pair
of waning flashlight batteries. A few
years later, not being discouraged by
the Electra’s dismal failure, they
brought out the Nortan Atlas Scrambler
and later a much more praiseworthy
successor, the P-11 Ranger which
boasted many improvements including a
new, lighter frame. But both models
were still plagued by the same Atlas
ills: sure, they had plenty of power,
but the main problem was trying to
keep them in one piece. The last new de-
sign the Norton people produced was a
new prototype 800 cc D.O.H.C. twin to
replace the 750’s, but intriguing and in-
novative as the exotic powerplant was,
it never made it into production. Per-
haps that was just about the time when
the company was running low on funds
for R & D. Understandably, the Norton
dealers here were getting a bit dis-
tressed.
At the time of the merger I would
have bet you dollars to donuts that, in-
deed, if they were going to revamp the
Atlas, the first to receive attention
would be the engine; the “Roadholder”
forks were nothing short of legendary
and the “Featherbed” frame as well
(the fact that names were given to
these frame components alone suggests
superiority). Then there was the fact
that the old 750 twin was not of the
more popular unit construction and it
did leak oil and vibrate quite a bit.
Surprisingly (to me at least), the first
things scrapped were the frame and
forks. True, the engine did receive a
new ignition system, better carburetion,
higher compression and new camshafts
(thanks for the guiding light, Paul),
but basically it’s the same Atlas power-
plant.
The fact that the Commando’s de-
signers were willing to part with the
frame and suspension shows, I think, a
desire for function even at the cost of
discarding tradition and slow, prag-
matic evolution. That’s not to say that
they haven’t retained much of the At-
las’s running gear, but the Commando
seems to have been born from a total-
concept approach. Suspicions that the
“Roadholder” forks and “Featherbed”
frame in concert with a new, perhaps
multi-cylinder engine might have been
a better tack should be immediately
discarded; the new Commandos surpass
the Atlas in every respect. So much for
history. Regardless of how the Com-
mandos got here, they’ve been upon us
now for about three years and we’re...
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