missing heavy twin history

... no wonder there is little written about them. 

Anna the club is a group of like minded enthusiasts who appreciate their particular model and  are interested in the history if someone has knowledge to impart about an obscure machine born from the same company then please feel free to educate us. I'm sure the  editor would love some new copy.

 Maybe a "historian" role should be created so these gems could be compiled into an overall   marquee history. 

In the meantime your offer to write on these would be interesting...

Cheers

Jon  

Then there is the 1942 twin 350cc, yes drawings exist for parts of it and some old piston catalogues still list the pistons. 

This is great stuff! I suppose we don't know about the development models because they were blown to bits on the dynamiter, what a waste

The unit construction 650 twins, that I had built into two different frames, could have been back in 1960, have been Norton's first production oil in frame, frame bike. One of the AMC drawings for this oil frame, frame, shows the frame mounting location's for a single, twin, and the unit  construction engines. Therefore, AMC and Norton would, could have built, and produced oil in frame bikes, in the 1960's. This was a full ten years before the Triumph oil frame twins came out in 1971. AMC and Norton, were looking at all possibilities, for their future products. As hind sight is 20,20 vision, it is so easy that we can now think, that they did not try, as so many of these ideas, were scrapped and sent to be melted down. Many of them were saved from such an abhorrent  fate, and only through those that worked there, that  some of them were saved from such a fate. The oil in frame, framed Matchless G12CSR is still a complete bike, as I own it, and three of these frames were constructed, back in 1959 to 1960. One went to Australia, but it has since disappeared, and it had a Matchless G80CS fitted to it. One, was destroyed in a road accident while out being road tested by Brian Slark, so only one remains, from this very innovative  frame idea. The new unit twin engine programme began in 1958, as I had many a conversation, with the late and much lamented Brian Jones, about its development program

The history exists, just that no one knows where it is or who has it, which is shame. Sadly, as those with the records can see that where the first models of type where taken for experimental / test use, nothing exists to say what happened to them thereafter. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I would gladly publish items regarding these 'lost' Norton machines - not just Heavy Twins (I wrote a short item some years back about the prototype 250cc Norton Single.) All that is required is for knowledgeable members to write the item(s) and then submit them to me. I personally don't have sufficient knowledge or sources of information to do this myself and I suggest that reliance on the Club Officers to produce all of this is a little 'one-sided'. So please get writing/typing!

Mark Woodward

Roadholder Editor

The Unified Twins were not recorded, in any of the Bracebridge Street twin records, as it was then a very secretive project. This the late Neval Hinton informed me, when I asked him for a club dating letter, so that I could register the first UT. I spent many an hour in the Science Museum, looking for any recording in the factory dispatch records for these engines, or even a complete bike. None of these engines have engine numbers, only casting numbers, or a PD number. this stood for Project Design. Bill Cakebread who worked on the Norton twin P10 project informed me when I told him about this engine, that he did not know any thing about its inception or that it had actually been constructed. There have been two articles that were written for Roadholder about the two different framed UT's and also twice in Real Classic magazine. I was told by the late, Brian Jones, that there was at Bracebridge Street a factory book, for all their experimental engines and bikes, and this was known as their PD book. In all my research, I have not had any one else who has admitted to seeing or knowing of this book. That would be some thing to see and read, if it could ever be found and its contents recorded.

My interest in the short lived DL bikes  must be obvious. The first featherbed twin  by Rex Mcandles  thats in  S Millers museum  was clearly  an influence with is faired in rear end 20 years ahead of its time.  I have a photo of a pre-production 88DL that is clearly a bit different to the production version. Was the slimline really introduced to reduce leg ache or is it just  a coincidence that the slimmed rear frame now perfectly fits the pressed steel Jubilee bathtub and uses up that pile of unwanted expensive pressings?. Will we ever know the real truth?.  Do we want to!!. Would we have wideline 650ss and Atlas without the DL?.

There are a lot people out there sat on a lot of Norton and I suspect AMC history and records, I know, as it pops up occasionally from the most unlikely of places. 

Anything AMC instigated is hit or miss, and I suspect the experimental data from that period would have stayed in the AMC line in 1966 and not the Norton line who were effectively a company owned by AMC who were the parent organisation. They would have kept projects as just numbers or codewords and then if viable decide whether they would be a Norton item or AMC item. Some of it got mixed up and ended up in the Norton world, like the Collier and earlier days. 

Some stuff was destroyed, and there are witnesses to this, but they only know of it being in bulk and not what each item was that was being burnt / dumped. Some people around at the time had the sense to grab it and look after it.  

Hi Anna, Yes,seen it, More standard than many offerings.Missing the G/box cover, non std brake,throttle and switchgear, aftermarket siamese ,kickstart fixing,odd cable runs,.all minor stuff. If I were in the market for another bike it would have been the 650 DL  (without panels) that recently sold. Never seen one in the flesh or for sale before. Would have needed a set of panels and brackets on the frame. But then most likely be the only one in the UK or the world,