Quote:
Originally Posted by Chocaholic
Haven’t really followed their financial gyrations but believed the same. Certainly not the same company of vintage British fame. A shame to see it go this way, but guessing the name will get revived again...hopefully by someone with an appreciation for the heritage and good head for business (perhaps an oxymoron in this case).
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That guy appeared to be Kenny Dreer, out of Oregon. He began by restoring Nortons and selling them as essentially brand new bikes. They were that thoroughly restored.
Then he ran out of parts, having used up pretty much all available NOS. He was forced to start re-manufacturing parts, some of them pretty major parts, like case halves, cylinder heads, etc. Eventually he was making pretty much each and every part himself (through vendors, of course). Once he reached that stage of production, he figured he may as well make some much needed design improvements.
So, in the end, Kenny was making brand new, much improved "Nortons". Then a bunch of old graybeards back in England took notice and said "hey, wait one bloody minute - we own that trademark!".
They sued Kenny out of business and took it over for themselves. I'm not sure of the details, but they wound up in so far over their heads that they eventually hired Kenny to oversee things for them. I'm not sure what their current relationship was before this turn of events, if Kenny was even still around, or what. This whole thing got off the ground on his shoulders, though. I'm not sure how old he is (or if he is even still alive, really), or what his level of interest might be, but it seems to me he would be "the guy". He was once already, albeit no one could say he was "in production" of new "Nortons". They were all bespoke, one-off bikes when he was making them.