(Left) Form and
function: The steel
perimeter frame found
on the International is
comprised of 41mm
tubes fashioned by
British racing frame
manufacturer Tigcraft.
One of the highlights of
the bike is the excellen t
pucker power afforded
by the single 320mm
front brake.
(Below) Shades of the
Manx? Maybe. although
the eng ine is the same
as that used In the
BMW F650 Funduro.
Suc h cross-gendering
wouldn't be the first
time for Norton, who
won the Isle of ManTT
in 1907 with Peugeot
power.
twi n, as compared to his less success ful
fou rs, and what do you imagine people
would have said if Tamburini had built
a 1500cc V8 MV Agusta, instead of the
750cc F4? In Norton's case, this means
twins and singles, and in order to keep
t he name afloat w hile we focus on
sourcing our own parallel-tw in engine
in order to do a proper job of relaunching the marq ue in the nex t cent ury, we
have to use proprieta ry powerplants, as
is now com mo np lace in the car world.
But w he n they're as good as the BMW
engine, this is no hard ship. "
"He re's the keys to one of the first
batch of 10 pro d uc tio n Internati onals see if yo u don ' t ag ree!"
Pa u sin g only to reflect th at Aprilia
a nd Birnota haven ' t exactly s uffe re d
over the years by buyin g engi nes from
ou tside - just as Cagiva and Laverd a are
abo u t to do, courtesy of the TL Suzuki _
V-twin family - and that Norto n's first
Is le of Man TT -w innin g bik e back in
1907 was powered by a Peu geot eng ine,
I took Seifert at his wo rd and headed for
hom e aboard th e final versio n of th e
bike I first rod e in pro totype form exactly 18 months ago. Five days later, I was
impressed enoug h to b e reluct ant to
h ave to h and the N orton ba ck to
Tigcraft ' s Dave Pearce. It's not per fect,
but it's load s of fun , wi th almost all the
criticisms I had after rid ing the 652SM
prototype back in 1997 ad dressed, and
those that rem ain ca pable of correction .
The result is a very capable sporting sin-
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