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Norton is a British motorcycle marque, originally from Birmingham, founded in 1898 as a manufacturer of fittings and parts for the two-wheel trade. By 1902, they had begun manufacturing motorcycles with bought in engines. In 1908, a Norton-built engine was added to the range. This began a long series of production of single and eventually twin-cylinder motorcycles. When major shareholders started to leave Norton in 1953, the company went bankrupt and Associated Motor Cycles bought the shares. In late 2008, Stuart Garner, a UK businessman, bought the rights to Norton and relaunched Norton in its Midlands home at Donington Park where it will develop the NRV588 racer, a machine styled after the Norton Commando, and a new range of Norton motorcycles, with options including 1200 cc Superbike, and 750 cc Supersport variants. Designed by Walter Moore, the Norton CS1 engine appeared in 1927, based closely on the ES2 pushrod engine and using many of its parts. On his departure to NSU in 1930, an entirely new OHC engine was designed by Arthur Carroll, which was the basis for all later OHC and DOHC Norton singles. That decade spawned the Norton racing legend. Of the nine Isle of Man Senior TTs (500 cc) between 1931 and 1939 Norton won seven. Until 1934, Norton bought Sturmey-Archer gearboxes and clutches. When Sturmey discontinued production Norton bought the design rights and had them made by Burman, a manufacturer of proprietary gearboxes. Nortons also appealed to ordinary motorcyclists who enjoyed the reliability and performance offered by single-cylinder engines with separate gearboxes. The marque withdrew their teams from racing in 1938, but between 1937 and 1945 nearly a quarter (over 100,000) of all British military motorcycles were Nortons, basically the WD 16H (solo) and WD Big Four outfit with driven sidecar wheel. The first Norton logo was a fairly simple, art nouveau design, with the name spelled in capitals. However, a new logo appeared on the front of the catalogue for 1914, which was a joint effort by James Lansdowne Norton and his daughter Ethel. It became known as the curly N logo, with only the initial letter as a capital, and was used by the company thereafter, first appearing on actual motorcycles in 1915. Ethel Norton also did some testing of her father's motorcycles. In 1913 the business declined. R.T. Shelley & Co., the main creditors, intervened and saved it. Norton Motors Ltd was formed shortly afterwards under joint directorship of James Norton and Bob Shelley. J.L. Norton died in 1925 aged only 56, but he saw his motorcycles win the Senior and sidecar TTs in 1924, specifically with the 500cc Model 18, Norton's first overhead valve single.
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