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The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

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Redmires
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The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#288982

Postby Redmires » March 7th, 2020, 2:29 am

A shocking story and a very sad end with tales of fraud, pension embezzlement and customers bikes being stripped down when in for service and the parts used to build new bikes.

https://www.visordown.com/news/general/ ... ns-scandal

and

https://www.superbike.co.uk/article/nor ... -the-start

Such a pity as the bikes they were producing are/were beautiful. And a sad indictment of British management, reminiscent of the Phoenix four at Rover MG. It shouldn't surprise anyone that all the major motor industries in the UK are run by German, Indian, Japanese & Chinese companies.

ReformedCharacter
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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#289019

Postby ReformedCharacter » March 7th, 2020, 11:12 am

Redmires wrote:A shocking story and a very sad end with tales of fraud, pension embezzlement and customers bikes being stripped down when in for service and the parts used to build new bikes.

https://www.visordown.com/news/general/ ... ns-scandal

and

https://www.superbike.co.uk/article/nor ... -the-start

Such a pity as the bikes they were producing are/were beautiful. And a sad indictment of British management, reminiscent of the Phoenix four at Rover MG. It shouldn't surprise anyone that all the major motor industries in the UK are run by German, Indian, Japanese & Chinese companies.

The latter link is interesting and sad. My youthful self used to hanker after a Commando, a good friend owned 2 of them. But even then the writing was on the wall with insufficient funding to compete with the onslaught of the Japanese bikes. I remember the legendary featherbed frame being spoken of with reverence and admiration. I chatted to a dealer once who told me that before a visit from the Honda sales rep. he'd moved all the drip trays from underneath the British bikes in his showroom and placed them under the Hondas (which didn't need them because they didn't drip oil). The guy from Honda certainly had the last laugh though.

RC

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#289396

Postby PrincessB » March 9th, 2020, 2:27 pm

Oddly enough, I was at Bletchley Park on Saturday and they have a few Norton bikes from the era - Complete with drip trays.

I really felt sorry for the girls and boys who had to use those bikes to carry encoded messages from the radio stations to Bletchley for decryption, the outfit was awful given the normal UK weather. A pair of unlined leather gloves, a set of goggles, an open face helmet and a trenchcoat.

Add in the requirement to drive during the blackouts with little or no light from the headlight up country lanes and I raise a glass to the them.

B.

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#302500

Postby scottnsilky » April 22nd, 2020, 3:39 pm

Front page news in MCN, Norton Motorcycles saved by £16M cash from someone, it doesn't sound much money to save the company. I didn't read the article as we're not allowed to read nowadays if we don't intend to buy.

I don't really think they are a long term prospect, unfortunately.

dp

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#302503

Postby Redmires » April 22nd, 2020, 3:45 pm

Yes, great news. Bought out by TVS of India, who are a major manufacturer of smaller bikes. It's reputed that the bikes will still be made in Britain, unlike Triumph who have now shifted total production of all bikes to its Thailand plants.

Full story here.

https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/n ... old-to-tvs

Royal Enfield have certainly gone from strength to strength with its new models and Land Rover/Jaguar have fared better than they did under Ford, Phoenix Group, British Leyland etc etc

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#302506

Postby PinkDalek » April 22nd, 2020, 4:07 pm

If of interest 07 Apr 2020 Statement of administrator's proposal available here https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07031947/filing-history. That will probably have an update at some stage.

The horse's mouth is here https://www.bdo.co.uk/en-gb/news/2020/bdo-secures-the-sale-of-the-business-of-norton-motorcycles-limited-to-a-subsidiary-of-tvs-motor commencing:

BDO secures the sale of the business of Norton Motorcycles (UK) Limited to a subsidiary of TVS Motor Company 20 April 2020 and includes Under the agreement, TVS Motor Company’s subsidiary has acquired the business and certain assets of Norton Motorcycles, as well as a licence to occupy the existing manufacturing premises for the next six months.

Many of the quotes in the Bennetts link come from there.

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#302529

Postby airbus330 » April 22nd, 2020, 6:20 pm

It is a promising start that TVS are saying that they will honour the orders placed and deposits paid. TVS have already have an engineering R&D set up in the Midlands and it looks like the design team from Norton may end up there. The current factory is being kept on for 6 months then a move into new premises. Stuart Garner will not be involved thankfully. While this all sounds good, I can't help but feel sad that yet another venerable name passes out of the country. But, if it had to happen, I'm glad it was India that picked it up. If Royal Enfield is anything to go by, the future is promising as a business.

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#303150

Postby bionichamster » April 25th, 2020, 11:39 am

airbus330 wrote:It is a promising start that TVS are saying that they will honour the orders placed and deposits paid. TVS have already have an engineering R&D set up in the Midlands and it looks like the design team from Norton may end up there. The current factory is being kept on for 6 months then a move into new premises. Stuart Garner will not be involved thankfully. While this all sounds good, I can't help but feel sad that yet another venerable name passes out of the country. But, if it had to happen, I'm glad it was India that picked it up. If Royal Enfield is anything to go by, the future is promising as a business.


Strikes Me that Norton has been bust or close to it many times and has been taken over or merged with others as a rescue strategy in pretty much every decade from the 1950's onwards. I believe it's not that long since it returned to UK ownership after many years under US or Canadian owners?

I expect the name will always have some cachet so will continue to survive or be resuscitated in some form many years to come.

BH

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Re: The end of the road for Norton Motorcycles

#368033

Postby ReformedCharacter » December 20th, 2020, 2:16 pm

The former owner of Norton Motorcycles will be forced to pay back about £14m missing from the company’s employee retirement fund, after being refused permission to appeal a pensions ombudsman’s ruling. Stuart Garner, who acquired the classic marque in 2008 and was feted for years by a series of UK government ministers, was told by the regulator in June to refund three retirement funds he controlled as trustee, following an ombudsman ruling he had acted “dishonestly”.

Norton slumped into administration in January and Garner is already the subject of a personal bankruptcy petition filed by Leicester City Council.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/20/norton-motorcycles-ex-owner-ordered-to-pay-back-missing-14m-in-pensions

RC


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