Hidden Dominator

Norton’s story begins in 1898 in Birmingham with James Lansdown Norton – an engineering toolmaker apprentice – devising plans for a motor-assisted bicycle to bear the name of Norton on its tank. By 1902, the ‘Energette’ was unveiled: it was a machine that was neither better nor worse than most others of the day. The first Norton was little more than a strengthened bicycle with a 1½ hp Clement engine clipped on to it.

Surviving decades of competition, Norton’s machines were said to have been built in ‘the light of experience’. And, by the 1960s, Norton had established itself as one of the pre-eminent motorcycle manufacturers in literally all classes of machine. Unfortunately, the shadow cast by the rising sun of the Japanese was about to radically shift the consumer landscape. However, in 1962, Norton’s problems were not apparent to the general public as the company expanded its range with the very capable DeLuxe version of its heavyweight parallel twin.

Featuring enclosed bodywork (in response to the scooter boom), the styling was not embraced by the public who preferred to see the raw line of the Dominator. Not one British factory could honestly claim the ‘enclosed era’ was a success: not a single designer has ever raised their head to claim credit for this short-lived trend. In actual fact, the vast majority of the DeLuxe models were stripped of their tin veils, as this machine has been, to reveal the attractive line of the Dominator design. Endowed with greater power than its cousin, the Dominator 88, and higher gearing which enabled it to top the magic ‘ton’, the 99 retains all the excellent handling and steering characteristics associated with the Featherbed chassis. One of the Rockers’ favorites’, the 99 remained essentially unchanged, apart from gaining alternator/coil-ignition electrics for the 1958 model until the feature was dropped in 1962. This example is offered with a set of handmade saddlebags and two of the three rear end panels.