| Norton Motors, UK
The original company was formed in 1898 by James L. Norton in Birmingham. By 1902 they had begun manufacturing motorcycles with French and Swiss engines. In 1907 a Norton motorcycle won the twin-cylinder class in the first Isle of Man TT race, beginning a sporting tradition that went on until the 1960s. In 1908 a Norton built engine was added to the line. This began a long series of single cylinder motorcycle production. Norton was one of the great names of the British motorcycle industry and produced machines that dominated racing for decades. Joe Craig's race shop is credited with the highly tuned single cylinder engines under which it succeeded. The Featherbed frame was gifted to Norton by the Belfast McCandless brothers in 1950 and first appeared in the Manx, and Norton was back to dominating racing after the war. Despite their racing success, Norton was experiencing financial difficulty in 1953, and was sold to Associated Motorcycles (AMC), owners of the motrcycle brands AJS, Matchless, Francis-Barnett and James. Although the last Manx models were sold in 1963, they are still highly sought after by privateer racers. Under heavy competition from cheap Japanese imports, AMC collapsed in 1966 and the company was reformed as Norton-Villiers. In 1973 BSA was ailing and the government formed the new Norton-Villiers-Triumph (NVT) company. The Triumph name came from BSA's Triumph Motorcycles subsidiary. Under pressure from the government for repayments, the company declined despite respectable sales and went into liquidation in 1975. In the 1980s, the company went through several incarnations - mainly because, both the name was popular, and now owned by several parties: in liquidation from NVT, the global rights were split between (at least) Norton UK, Germany, America and Rest of the World. Norton was relaunched from Lichfield in 1988 and the new models were Senior TT winners in 1992 - but have not caught on in the commercial market. The succeeding British company has had some success with the Wankel-engined Interpol 2 motorcycle for civilian and military police forces. The F1 and now called the TT model rotary motorcycles were reportedly made of cheaper parts, but were not, and sold out instantly for a song.
http://www.nortonmotors.co.uk/
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