International Dealer News IDN 154 April/May 2020 | Page 16

THE BRADLEY REPORT
Norton
The sorry tale of the historic Norton
motorcycle brand continues to see
chapters of disappointment added to
its illustrious story. Having been
founded in 1898 and seen many
decades of, mostly, success, with some
excellent race stories and
achievements added to the annals of
the international motorcycle industry
(not least on the Isle of Man), since the
1950s the brand has mostly lurched
from one ultimately doomed
ownership scenario to the next.
Acquired by a certain Stuart Garner
around thirteen years ago, and re-
established at Donington Hall in the
UK (alongside the Donington Park race
track), a company that had been
heavily supported by the UK tax payer
and various, generally ill-fated
investment and finance plans, finally
folded and filed for bankruptcy in
January this year.
For a project that at one stage had
even boasted the hiring of
internationally recognised motorcycle
design guru Pierre Terblanche, the
ambitions had always exceeded the
resources and reality has finally
brought the fantasy crashing down.
Hundreds of people, from consumers
who have paid deposits, or in some
cases, paid dealers in full in advance
for complete bikes, to pension pot
investors, banks, the UK tax authorities
and police fraud investigators are
looking for Garner.
You could fill a book with the various
twists, turns and failed plans that have
characterised this latest short and
Honda
Scooter production at Honda's
Atessa/Chieti (Abruzzo) factory
in Italy has been suspended
until further notice and a
planned test launch for a new
SH125 cancelled.
The company continues to bask
in the glory of having produced
over 400 million motorcycles
and scooters, over 100m of
them 'Super Cub' models, while
continuing to garner plaudits
for the CB4X inline four concept
it unveiled at EICMA - a "blend
of Sport and Touring with a
healthy dash of Crossover from
the imaginative pen of Valerio
Aiello and his team of young
designers".
In March Honda announced an
online world premiere for its
CB-F Concept, which had been
planned for appearance at the
36th Osaka Motorcycle Show
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INTERNATIONAL DEALER NEWS - APRIL/MAY 2020
Norton production was based in a former airline call centre in a two-storey
office block in the car park behind Donington Hall.
spectacularly inept iteration in the life
(and now death) of the Norton brand,
but one that sums up the parallel
universe in which Garner operated
came in the second half of 2017.
Garner signed a 20-year "design and
licence" deal with Chinese
conglomerate Zongshen (which makes
around four million motorcycle and
scooter engines annually) in an
attempt to commercialise the Norton
IP.
The stated aim had been to see
Zongshen build a new 650 cc twin
engine that had theoretically been
jointly engineered and developed by
Norton and Ricardo - for likely
production under the 'Zongshen' or
'Cyclone' brands.
However, like so many of the deals that
had Garner's fingerprints on them, it
appears to have come to nothing.
Although the value of the deal was to
remain private, the initial
consideration paid to Norton was
described at the time as being in the
"millions of dollars", with an ongoing
royalty on each engine produced.
Garner's final insult to all those who
had shown faith in him (and the project) down the years was to sell off
the rights to the 961 engine platform
(IP and tooling) to Chinese scooter
manufacturer Jinlang Science and
Technology Co Ltd. Jinlang is quoted
as saying that it intends to "work with
our design partner in Italy to develop
a new motorcycle using the 961
engine, which we will sell worldwide".
At the time of writing, various phoenix
ownership scenarios have been
suggested. Triumph politely but firmly
distanced themselves from rumours
that the two brands may be reunited
again, and names from Stefan Pierer
to Zongshen, Bajaj to BMW and
Mahindra to Hero have all been
mentioned as possible deal makers.
However, the truth is that in the
context of these troubled times and
the likely recession into which the
motorcycle industry is about to be
plunged, the damage inflicted on the
Norton brand might prove to be fatal
this time round.
As this edition of IDN went to
press, it emerged that the
auditors analysing the Norton
accounts appear to have found
a £28m hole.
2020 and the 47th Tokyo
Motorcycle Show; recent design
awards include a Red Dot for
the 2020 CBR1000RR-R
Fireblade SP.
For the three months ended
December 31, 2019, Honda
reported motorcycle segment
revenue of 530,227m yen for a
segment profit of 74,527m yen,
up against revenue of 530,227m
yen and profit of 69,537m yen
in the year ago quarter.
For the nine months to
December 31, 2019, Honda
reported motorcycle segment
revenue of 1,585,770m yen for a segment profit of 246,711
million yen, down against
revenue of 1,610,740m yen and
profit of 246,711m yen in the
year ago period.
In volume terms, Honda reports
Group Unit Sales of 15,038,000
PTWs worldwide for the nine
months to December 31st 2019
(-4.1%); 186,000 of them in
Europe (+5,000 units), 221,000
in North America (+5,000),
154,000 in Japan (-3,000) and
13,453,000 in Asia (-734,000).
CB-F Concept