Naked Speed

One day in the spring of 2014 the shop phone rang.  On the other end of the line was Dave Austin, a British car collector from upstate New York.  He told a crazy story about finding a stash of cars deep in the back woods of someone's property, and after making a deal to purchase the lot was told the sale included a "rusty old motorcycle".  Turns out the bike was a 100% complete '71 Norton Commando.  Dave wanted NYC Norton to do the "resurrection" on this one.  The Cafe Racer TV folks got wind of this and asked if we could wait to do up the bike to coincide with their film schedule for their upcoming new season.  Sure thing.  We were busy anyway, so this would dovetail nicely into the shop schedule later in the summer. Now, as I write this, the show has already aired (February 4, [...]

2024-02-25T17:56:32-05:00February 8th, 2015|nycNorton|

StealthFighter

Brushed and flat: When a project gets moving, sometimes it takes a while for it to show its character.  When we built up the motor for this bike, it was built around a good cam, porting, carbs, etc.  It was a race motor alone on the bench.  As we started to build up the bike around it, the function started steering the form. With the PW3 cam and the ported head it was clear a good exhaust would be necessary.  During a shop visit one day, owner Peter Billow looked at a few of the race bikes within and asked about the idea of a Maney exhaust.  Certainly not unheard of for a street bike, but off the menu, for sure.  But we know by now that Steve Maney's exhaust and the PW3 care are the perfect marriage, fantastic for mid-range, the power band where a street bike is used [...]

2012-04-18T21:11:53-04:00April 18th, 2012|builds, commando, nycNorton, street|
Go to Top