British Motorcycle Icon Norton Roars Back to Life With 100M Pound Investment
Image: Norton Motorcycles
The Norton name has been written in gorgeous script on the tanks of motorcycles for 120 years, and the company has been involved in racing for nearly as long. If only for nostalgia’s sake, the company falling into bankruptcy in 2020 after its most recent revival in 2008 was particularly sad news. The company owed around 600,000 pounds in back taxes, and there were mountains of evidence of fraud. It was untenable, and lots of people lost a lot of money investing in that company. The remains of the company were swept up in a cash purchase by TVS Motor Company of India.
Thanks to a cash influx from TVS, the company known as Norton is back to hand-building luxury motorcycles once more. The former CEO admitted guilt in a plot to fraudulently take around 11 million pounds of employee pensions, and has been sentenced to jail. All is right with the world once more. Thankfully TVS managed to retain most of the company’s original employees, and now they’re back hard at work. The New Norton anticipates the investment will lead to a modernization of process, an increase in production and sales, and most importantly the creation of as many as 300 new jobs. Excellent!
TVS, from the word go, has been pumping money into the revived Norton. Just last year the company finished a brand new 73,000 sqft headquarters in Solihull. It is said to be capable of producing around 8,000 new Nortons per year, which is a huge increase over what the company’s production capacity has been of late. Production has re-started on the old models, now revamped, and the company unveiled a new V4 Cafe Racer prototype late last year.
It has been so long since Norton was a major player, and we can all hope that this new resurgence will only help to strengthen the brand in the UK and around the world. With this kind of investment, it’s bound to be a rousing success, and the legendary motorcycling name is finally getting the attention it so dearly deserves.
