Phillip Tooth
The last-of-the-line Norton Commandos were in essence great machines, though the circumstances in which they were built contributed to them from being far from ideal.
With a name like Interstate you’d expect the Norton Commando 850 Mk III to gobble up the miles. And it does. This is a motorcycle that covers the ground in such a relaxed way it feels like you could ride from one side of America to the other at a rock-steady 90mph.
The long-legged 828cc twin feels unburstable. Slow down to 70 and the engine turns over at a lazy 3900rpm. At that sort of speed petrol disappears through the twin Amal Concentrics at an eco-friendly rate of 50mpg but with a generous 5.25 gallon tank that still means you can cover over 200 miles before you need to start looking for a gas station.
Below 2500rpm the engine shakes on its rubber mountings. You know it is happening, but at least the vibration is not transmitted to hands and feet with the same urgency as a Featherbed framed Atlas. Then as the tachometer needle approaches 3000 it is almost as if the Great God of Motorcycling has blessed the Norton and banished the shakes. The Commando is transformed into one of the smoothest motorcycles in the world.
In the early 1970s the Commando was just about unbeatable in production racing, so take a detour onto some back roads and you’ll find the Mk III has the same legendary handling as the lighter, quicker 750 twins. The gearbox action is slick, the diaphragm spring clutch is two-finger light and the 850’s engine responds instantly with huge dollops of creamy torque.
The Mk III is no snortin’ Norton. This is a refined tourer with a build quality good enough to take on the best from Germany and Japan. Unfortunately when this Interstate was made in early 1977 Norton Villiers Triumph was already in the hands of the Official Receiver.
The Commando story really begins when Dennis Poore and his Manganese Bronze Holdings empire bought what was left of Associated Motor Cycles Limited (AMC), makers of AJS and Matchless, Norton and James motorcycles, in September 1966. Poore’s company already owned Villiers and so that December a new company was formed – Norton Villiers.
Besides being a very good businessman, Poore also knew a thing or two about all things mechanical – he had been a Wing Commander in the wartime RAF, raced an Alfa Romeo and had a Master’s degree in engineering from King’s College, Cambridge. He realised that the ageing Atlas badly needed updating. Poore wanted someone who could think outside the box and take a fresh look at motorcycle design, so in January 1967 he appointed Dr Stefan Bauer to head up a team to develop a new flagship motorcycle that would wear the Norton badge.
Heated grips would make the MkIII a more enjoyable ride in winter...
Bauer was an Austrian born and educated in Vienna. He became a professor at Cambridge University, where he taught Poore, but in 1940 he went to Canada to work on atomic bomb research. After WWII he returned to the UK to work on nuclear power reactors before joining the Rolls Royce nuclear submarine programme. There was no doubt that Bauer had a brilliant mind. He was only 5ft 4in (1.6m) tall and he even looked like everyone’s idea of an absent minded rocket scientist. He was also a modest man. But he was no motorcyclist. In fact, he had never ridden on one, so Poore added two experienced motorcycle development engineers to Bauer’s team – Bob Trigg and Bernard Hooper.
One quick spin on the back of an Atlas convinced Bauer that something had to be done about the vibration. He also dismissed the legendary Featherbed frame as not rigid enough, despite the fact that it had been copied by countless manufacturers for their race bikes. Bauer then suggested the engine should be rubber mounted. This was not a new idea – BSA had used rubber mounting for the Sunbeam S7 – but that 500cc shaft drive twin was hardly a roadburner. The general consensus was that rubber mounting the engine would ruin the handling.
Then Bob Trigg came up with the idea of suspending the Atlas engine and exhausts, along with the AMC gearbox with final drive, swinging arm and wheel as a single unit in a rubber-mounted subframe. This would then ‘float’ within a new main frame. Trigg and Hooper perfected the design, using a bacon slicer to shave down Metalastic rubber bushes until they got what they were looking for, and patented the idea as the Isolastic system.
Interstate petrol tank means there’s the ability to cruise for many miles.
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