Commando R

Problem with the R Type despite its low numbers is that there were two versions. It was just Bitsa whilst Norton decided what they wanted to make it seems. The addendums in the parts books are the best places to look for the differences.

Personally, I think it is the better looking bike available from Norton at that time. 

Looks great and pretty original to me.
Maybe it came from the same barn as mine?

The Oddball Norton 750 Commando - Motorcycle Classics

Eddie

I'm pretty sure the hero of the 1970s Australian biker movie ' Stone' had an R type.

He had to race against an Aborigine on a Kwaka 9 around North Sydney. He could pull quite a respectable mono on the R type .

Worth watching, but beware!!! Strange 1970s hippy lingo. 

"Big bikes man, I mean really big bikes.....Righttttt...."

And my favorite " The cat's a pig...mannnn."

Don Anson 

Melbourne. 

The early version had the low level silencers and headlamp without the halo, the later versions had what was to become the Roadster, or more accurately, the S type with roadster type silencers.  Contact me at ANIL and I will send you a photo of an early '69 R type. 

This is a picture from the 69 Norton sales brochure:

Do you mean this type, Ashley?

It differs from the early "R" Type by other side panels and has the central oil tank just like the "S" Type and the headlight "halo".

The early version was pretty much a Fastback with Roadster tank and seat. A difficult large brochure for those of us with only an A4 scanner.

John,

The attachments say it all, we know the R type was produced in 1970, we also now the Roadster appeared in 1970 as well. The second batch of R type looks like it was to back fill outstanding orders. 

I suspect Berliner had a big input to the development at the time, the '70 fastback at that time arrived with upswept pipes with the peashooter silencers and I suspect their customers wanted a R type or S type with the later peashooter silencers which saw the demise of the low level silencers and the coming about of the Roadster. To avoid the 'it's a S type or R type with peashooters' tag or 'R type with large headlamp and low level exhausts' once the peashooters were wanted and fitted it made sense to call it the Roadster to distinguish it from what had gone before. The Decal for the Roadster 06.1699 was drawn and released to production in Nov 1969, so it seems the plans for the R type and the Roadster were running concurrently at the time.