After a failed first attempt under Stuart Garner leadership, the new Commando 961 will finally arrive under the new Indian leadership. Norton has announced the arrival of the Commando 961 on its own website.
As cool as the quote with which Norton has now announced the arrival of the new Commando 961, it is one of the most eventful models in the recent history of the traditionally British brand, which has been in the hands of the Indian giant TVS Motor since April 2020. company.
The story of the 916 Commando begins at the beginning of this century, when Norton was in American hands and then owner Kenny Dreer decided to move from restoring and upgrading old Norton Commandos to producing complete engines. He modernized the design, but the 916 Commando would never go into production: in 2006 all activities were suspended.
After 15 years in American ownership, British entrepreneur Stuart Garner seemed to be the savior. He bought the brand and started a new factory in the Donington Park estate, working on a new Commando based on the Dreer bike. The new Commando 961 was put on the market in a limited edition, but it soon became apparent that the bike had a number of teething problems.
Then it went from bad to worse. While Norton was burning money racing the Isle of Man TT, the Donington Park complex was barely making any money and Garner cheated on giving retirees their pension money under false pretenses to invest that money in Norton.
In the meantime, it also rained complaints from customers who had already paid a lot of money (some even the total purchase amount), but were still waiting for their bike and had already given up hope. Norton went bankrupt in January 2020, Garner was convicted this year for the misuse of pension funds.
However, in April 2020, word came that Indian giant TVS Motor Company had acquired Norton Motorcycles. New owner TVS announced that it would consider all existing and under development engines. The production of the V4 was resumed and in addition a cafe racer style V4CR was announced, which technically must have a lot of DNA with the V4SV.
As a third model, Norton has now announced the Commando 916. Technical information is of course missing, but based on the three photos Norton has placed on its own website, the engine seems to have a lot of resemblance to the old Commando 916 under the Garner regime. But without all those miserable teething problems.
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.