Norton is one of the most evocative names in the history of British motorcycling.
It has a magical effect on motorcyclists even now, around a quarter of a century after the marque’s heyday. This film tells the whole Norton story.
At the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum we examine the oldest Norton of them all, a 1905 model with a Peugeot engine. And Sammy describes two of the rarest racers in existence – the horizontal-engined Model F and the revolutionary ‘kneeler’ streamliner.
At the National Motorcycle Museum we look at every significant Norton over the past ninety years – from the 1907 winner of the TT twin-cylinder class right up to the unique rotary-engined racer that won Norton’s last TT in 1992.
Leading motorcycle journalist Alan Cathcart track tests the Formula 750 Nortons of the Seventies including the actual 1973 TT winner with its unique monococque chassis.
Plus we talk to famous Norton Racers – the legendary Geoff Duke and the winner of that 1992 TT, Steve Hislop, along with engineers, designers and executives who played key roles in the Norton story.
With classic rallies and races on the Isle of Man, Assen in Holland and Daytona, USA and the Norton Owners Club on a pilgrimage from the National Motorcycle Museum to the old Norton factory in Birmingham, this is a production that pays full homage to Norton’s glorious past and which looks with hope into the future for a name that was once synonymous with ‘The Best of British’.
