 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2015) |
| Industry | Motorcycles |
|---|---|
| Predecessors | |
| Founded | 1973 |
| Defunct | 1978 |
| Fate | Receivership |
| Successors | |
| Headquarters | Andover, Meriden, Small Heath, Wolverhampton |
Key people | Dennis Poore |
| Subsidiaries | Triumph, Norton |
Norton Villiers Triumph (NVT) was a British motorcycle manufacturer, formed by the British government to continue the UK motorcycling industry, until the company's ultimate demise.
Triumph had been owned by the BSA Group since 1951, but by 1972 the merged BSA-Triumph group was in serious financial trouble. In March 1973 the value of BSA shares slumped, which affected production at Meriden, causing 300 workers there to be laid off. [1] British government policy at the time was to save strategic industries with taxpayers' money, and as BSA-Triumph had won the Queen's Awards for Exports a few years earlier, the industry was deemed eligible for financial support. The Conservative government under Ted Heath decided to bail out the company, provided that to compete with the Japanese it merged with financially troubled Norton Villiers (the remains of Associated Motor Cycles, which had gone bust in 1966), a subsidiary of British engineering conglomerate Manganese Bronze Holdings.
The merged company was created in 1973, with Manganese Bronze exchanging the motorcycle parts of Norton Villiers in exchange for the non-motorcycling bits of the BSA Group - mainly Carbodies, the builder of the Austin FX4 London taxi: the classic "black cab". As BSA was both a failed company and a solely British-known brand (the company's products had always been most successfully marketed in North America under the Triumph brand), the new conglomerate was called Norton Villiers Triumph—being effectively the consolidation of the entire once-dominant British motorcycle industry, thanks to the rise of the car and the Japanese manufacturers.[ citation needed ]
NVT inherited four motorcycle factories—Small Heath (ex-BSA); Andover and Wolverhampton (Norton); and Meriden (Triumph). Chairman Dennis Poore intended to move all motorcycle production to Small Heath and Wolverhampton. [1] Although Meriden was the most modern[ citation needed ], its workers were the most militant[ citation needed ] and had the worst productivity of the four. Poore had plans to sell the Meriden site to Jaguar. [1] In September 1973 Poore met with union representatives at Meriden and informed them that the factory was to be closed in the next few months and all 1,700 workers made redundant. [2] In response, the workers occupied the factory and refused to allow any plant, components or completed motorcycles to leave the factory. [3]
Still short of development cash, the company was restricted to launching developments of existing products, most notably around the popular Norton Commando. With its classical parallel twin probably by now overdeveloped, from March 1973 the Roadster, Hi Rider, and the Interstate all began to use a new 828 cc engine. Later NVT also produced the Easy Rider moped including a "sixteener" version with pedals and the NVT rambler 125/175 cc. This had a Yamaha engine housed in a British monoshock frame. Instruments were from Yamaha and forks, brakes and wheel parts from three Italian manufacturers. The Rambler later became the BSA Tracker. What money there was for development now had to be focused on one engine development. Deciding that the Japanese had taken the market a step forward, NVT were looking for a competitive edge, and had two products that could be developed, both from the BSA side of the company:
Concluding that the commuter market was dying, NVT chose the Wankel, and as Peter Williams won the 1973 Formula 750 Isle of Man T.T. and Mick Grant came second for the Norton Racing team that year, the decision was to put the new engine in a new Norton motorcycle. However, the infrastructure of the old Norton company was itself being closed down, as the Andover factory closed after a sit-in. This coincided with the Conservative government of Ted Heath losing power, and in the light of the Three-Day Week the subsidy was withdrawn from June 1974 under the new Labour Government of Harold Wilson.
NVT continued with a programme of works closures, deciding to concentrate production on Wolverhampton and Small Heath. Poorly handled in communications, the announcement caused a sit-in at Meriden which, as it produced parts for other factories, caused Small Heath to shut down. With the election of the 1974 Labour government, the Meriden workers' co-operative was formed with NVT its sole customer for its production of 750 cc Triumph Bonneville T140V and Triumph Tiger TR7V models. Forced by American legislation to move all brake controls to the right-hand side of the bike, the standard used by most other manufacturers, including the Japanese. The foot-brake lever on British motorcycles was positioned on the left-hand side as it was to this side that sidecars were affixed. The brake pedal on the sidecar was then positioned alongside the brake pedal of the motorcycle allowing braking of both motorcycle and sidecar with one foot. The company reduced its range to five models: two Norton Commandos (the Mk.3 Interstate and the Roadster), the Triumph Bonneville T140V, the Triumph Tiger TR7RV and the Triumph Trident T160V. Both Nortons and the T160 were improved by the fitting of an electric starter, a rear disc brake and the left side gear change/right foot brake. The Bonneville got its own electric start in 1980 when marketed by the Meriden workers' co-operative itself. Unlike other motorcycles of this era, the kickstart lever was retained and the electric starter on Nortons was more properly referred to as an electric assister.
In July 1975, the new Industry Minister Eric Varley recalled a loan for £4 million and refused to renew the company's export credits. The company went into receivership, and redundancies were announced for all of the staff at the various sites.
The Wolverhampton factory went into receivership in September 1975 [4] and closed on 13 October making 1,600 workers redundant. [5]
The closure of Small Heath was also announced in September 1975 and when an order for Tridents from the Saudi Arabian police force was completed the factory closed in February 1976. [4]
Ironically, slated by management for closure, the Meriden site survived on Eric Varley's predecessor, Tony Benn's plan to exploit the Triumph Bonneville by a worker co-operative with a substantial government loan.
The Norton Wankel project was sold off by the receivers into private hands, with slow-selling and under-developed rotary-engined motorcycles appearing under the Norton name for the next 15 years;[ citation needed ] while Wolverhampton, having no viable products to produce, was reduced to a workers' sit-in and showing of an updated Commando model named Norton 76 and a 500 cc twin based on the Wulf concept. After Wolverhampton closed, having made Commandos from remaining spares, the workers took the former Tong Castle gates and erected them at the former Marston site.
NVT was eventually liquidated in 1978. Even though Norton Villiers Triumph is no more, motorcycles bearing the Triumph name are still being made; the marketing rights to Triumph were sold to the Meriden workers' co-operative in 1977 and upon its having gone into receivership in 1983, sold on to a new Triumph Motorcycles Ltd company situated in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Dennis Poore became Managing Director of Manganese Bronze, until his death in 1987.
The Norton Motorcycle Company is a brand of motorcycles headquartered in Solihull, West Midlands,, England. For some years around 1990, the rights to use the name on motorcycles was owned by North American financiers.
Triumph Engineering Co Ltd was a British motorcycle manufacturing company, based originally in Coventry and then in Meriden. A new company, Triumph Motorcycles Ltd, based in Hinckley, gained the name rights after the end of the company in the 1980s and is now one of the world's major motorcycle manufacturers.
Roger Dennistoun Poore was a British racing driver, financier and entrepreneur. He became chairman of Norton Villiers Triumph (NVT) during the final years of the old British motorcycle industry.
The Triumph Thunderbird is a British motorcycle that was introduced by Triumph in 1949 and produced in many forms until 1966. The name was used three more times for new and distinct Triumph models.
The Triumph Trident and BSA Rocket 3 was a technically advanced, high-performance roadster motorcycle made by Triumph Engineering and BSA from 1968 to 1975, and sold under both the Triumph and BSA marques. Alongside the Honda CB750, and later the Kawasaki triples, it brought a new level of sophistication to street motorcycles, marking the beginning of the superbike era. The Honda CB750 overshadowed the Trident to be remembered as the 'first superbike', in spite of the Triumph Trident actually debuting before the Honda by a few weeks.
The Triumph Bonneville is a standard motorcycle featuring a parallel-twin four-stroke engine and manufactured in three generations over three separate production runs.
Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) was a British motorcycle manufacturer founded by the Collier brothers as a parent company for the Matchless and AJS motorcycle companies. It later absorbed Francis-Barnett, James, and Norton before incorporation into Norton-Villiers. Henry Herbert Collier founded Matchless as a cycle company in 1878. His sons Henry (Harry) and Charles (Charlie) joined him and the name was changed to H. Collier & Sons.
Norton-Villiers was a British motorcycle manufacturer formed in the 1960s following the collapse of AMC. With the general decline of the British motorcycle industry, under a British Government initiative it was later combined with the remnants of BSA Triumph to form Norton-Villiers-Triumph.
The Norton Commando is a British Norton-Villiers motorcycle with an OHV pre-unit parallel-twin engine, produced by the Norton Motorcycle company from 1967 until 1977. Initially having a nominal 750 cc displacement, actually 745 cc (45.5 cu in), in 1973 it became an 850 cc, actually 828 cc (50.5 cu in). It had a hemi-type head, similar to all OHV Norton engines since the early 1920s.
Douglas Lionel Hele was a pioneering British motorcycle engineer with Triumph and other firms: BSA, Douglas and Norton. He was born in Birmingham in 1919 and died in Hagley, Worcestershire on 2 November 2001.
The Triumph TR65 Thunderbird is a motorcycle made by the Triumph worker's co-operative at the Meriden factory from 1981 to 1983. The TR65 was a reintroduction of the Triumph Thunderbird model name first used on the original 6T Thunderbird of 1949. A short stroke model, the Daytona 600 was designed in 1983 but not produced.
Leslie Frederick Harris was an English businessman and motorcycle enthusiast who resurrected the Triumph Bonneville for a few years in the 1980s. Born in 1939, he was described as the "saviour of the British motorcycle industry". Invited to Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament, in 1987 he was visited by the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He died in February 2009, aged 69.
Brian Jones was a motorcycle designer and engineer born in Gloucester, United Kingdom in 1928. Notable for his contribution to the original design of the Triumph Bonneville, he died in Coventry, on 4 March 2001.
The isolastic frame, designated by Norton as GlideRide, used a system of engine-to-frame mountings incorporating rubber bushes to isolate the vibration of the vertical twin engine from the frame and rider. The isolastic frame was developed for use with the Commando inclined engine, whilst the Featherbed frame continued in production for the Mercury with a softer-specification 650 cc vertical-engine until 1970.
BSA Company Limited is a motorcycle manufacturer which purchased rights to the BSA name from Birmingham Small Arms Company's successor, Dennis Poore's Manganese Bronze Holdings, upon the liquidation of Norton Villiers Triumph in 1978.
The Hyde Harrier is a British sports motorcycle designed by Norman Hyde and unveiled at the British motorcycle show in 1987. It used donor engines from the Meriden Triumph Bonneville twin or Triumph Trident triple and a frame developed by Harris Performance, along with performance brakes by AP Lockheed and Dymag wheels.
BSA motorcycles were made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA), which was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.
The BSA/Triumph racing triples were three cylinder 750 cc racing motorcycles manufactured by BSA/Triumph and raced with factory support from 1969-1974. There were road racing, production racing, endurance racing and flat track variants. The machines were based on the road-going BSA Rocket 3/Triumph Trident.
The Norton Interpol was a police motorcycle produced by the British manufacturer Norton between 1969 and 1976. The Interpol was based on the company's Commando model. The 'Interpol' name was retained for Norton's later Norton Interpol 2 rotary engined police motorcycle.
The Norton Challenge P86, also known as the Norton Cosworth, is a racing motorcycle designed in 1973 by Keith Duckworth of Cosworth Engineering for Norton Motorcyles. The 750 cc (46 cu in) DOHC vertical twin was essentially two cylinders from Cosworth's world championship winning V8 DFV Formula One engine. A road going version was intended to be a replacement for the Norton Commando. Four complete machines and around 30 engines were made before the project was cancelled due to the financial collapse of NVT.