3 weeks into our trip to the UK and yesterday we did the Norton Factory Tour at Donington Hall. We could hear the British Superbikes during practice at Donington Park while waiting for all the people to turn up... It really is a small British Motorcycle Factory with around 1000 bikes a year being made there... There are plans to up production soon as the V4 1200 comes online in August so they will add another 8 Bike stands for a total of 16.... While the older Commando and Dominators are beautiful bikes.. the V4 1200 is gorgeous... so compact for a 1200cc V4 and with a design brief of 200 HP and 200 MPH it has apparently hit the mark. We spent quite a bit of time in the Fab shop looking at and discussing their TT bikes (new bikes being built for this years TT). These are very special bikes... nearly 30 litres of fuel to get around the full TT course... they are still running an Aprillia 1000cc V4 but could well go to their own V4 next year... but it was nice to be up close to these special bikes. Anyway... on to the pics... not in any special order...
Wow, that is so super cool.I hope you packed that special motorcycle carry on bag that we spoke about.My favourite bike is the first picture, it just needs one of those thumb nail fairings fitted and i'd be one happy fat little piggy to own it. Which one have you bought ?. Good to hear your having a blast on your holidays though.
Haha, no room for any extra luggage, the shopping boss has seen to that. I would love the V4SS but at $35K it is well outside my budget. I will just stick to my 250's for now. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Cant afford that either , nice bike though. But i'll stick to my little SRX 250 also as it suit my needs / likes. Plus the 250cc forum is a very welcoming / helpfull place be at. No bad attitudes are here as like other forum's that i use to visit.
It was great to see in the fab shop, the bare frames and the differences between the Dominator and the Commando... stance is different which requires slightly different down tubes, different angle for the steering etc.... And then seeing the alloy fuel tank process... 5 pieces make up the top skin with them tig welded from the inside... then linished back before they go over the skin with a DA sander (less heat than linishing all of it) and polish just the weld lines to ensure they are not porous.... then the underside is tacked in place and test fitted to a frame jig to ensure it doesnt snag anywhere etc... if its all ok they then hand cut filler pieces to be welded in before pressure testing and then full polish.... the alloy tanks are not coated in any way... they couldnt find a coating that produced a finish they were happy with that didnt go yellow after a short while in the sun... I believe the frame on the V4 1200 will be highly polished as well so it will need quite a bit to look after it...
Great! Such a shame that the Irving Vincent can't be produced as a road bike. I expect someone in the world will buy them out sooner or later.