Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Eurofile : Benelli to go Sagem Norton isn 't the ' only new cu stomer Sagem ha s o n th e horizon, as t he French-owned, British -based fuel-injection sp ecialist born ou t of the ashes of Lucas Industries contin ues to mak e its mark as th e pro vid er o f th e m o st sophistica ted en gin e-m an agem ent system s av ailable in the ma rk etplace for motorcycle use. Now Benelli is followin g Aprilia (w ho u ses N ip po n de ns o EFI on the RSV Mille) in br eaking out of the Magn eti Marelli stra ng lehold on tw o-wheel ed Italian EFI a p plica tions by developing a Sagem sys tem for the new thr ee- cylin d er Torn ad o 900 - sched uled to en ter production early in 2001. Bertelli chief engineer Riccard o Rosa has alrea dy visite d Sagem's Birm in gham base to step up d evelopment, an d with the 12-valve 898cc Tornad o eng ine alread y producing 137 hp at the gea rbox at 11,200 rpm in street guise (yet pulling cleanly from as low as 2000 rpm to the present 12,700-rpm red line in spite of its ultra short-stroke 85.3 x 52.4 mm configuration, and runnin g 53m m th ro ttle bod ies which may be upsized to 55mm in the nea r fu tu re), d ev el opment is rep orted ly a hea d of sc hedu le for the gro un d- breaking Italian triple. The seizure of Norton The plot of the lon g-runni ng No rto n soa p .ope ra has tak en a fu rth er tw ist, wi th the Octo ber 2 seizure of all Norton p ropert y in th e prem ises of engi neer Al Mellin g's Britis h MRD d esign co ns u ltancy. Th e seizure was very official, p erfo rm ed by ba iliffs a rmed wit h a cou rt orde r and act in g o n beh alf o f U.Sc-based Norton Motors Internat ion al (N MI). Th e se iz ure is und er s tood to hav e includ ed all designs , parts a nd rollin g p rototypes for the mu ch-touted V-e ight Nemesis 15 00cc ultrabike - a m ot orcycl e supposed ly capab le of 230 mph in d eveloped guise as well as the 750cc Man x Superbike, representing one-half of the Nemes is eng ine, and the 1600cc aircoo le d Nirvan a pu shrod V-twin crui ser, a mock-up prototyp e o f w hich Melling had recentl y completed. (Above) The Norton V-B Nemlsis. The move reflects (Right) Norton engineer AI Melling poses with the 750cc, growing frustration on the lour-cylinder Manx engine. part of Minn eapolis-based NMI management, headed by CEO Rob Ki lpa tri ck and company pr esident John Tastad , at the slow pace of Nemesis development, an d a growin g awareness of the impracticalities of the project as a solid revenue-earner - at leas t in the med ium term. With the price of NMI stock progressively sinking over the past 12 months on the Nasdaq exchange, to a $2.06 curren t listin g, compared to a 52-week high of $6.50, and another stock flotati on imminently need ed to pa y for further development expenses and start-up production costs, Kilpatri ck and Tastad appear to have decided the time had come for an expert independent assessmen t of the var ious Melling-derived Norton projects, hence the seizure order. . For this asses sment, NMI has appointed another British desi gn consultancy, Vep ro Ltd . (as in Vehicle Engineering Projects), fou nde d ea rlier this yea r by two recent returnees from the USA, Neil Wright and Rick Cronk. Wright was formerly chief engineer at John Bloor's neighboring Triumph factory in Hinckl ey, where Cron k was also head of chassis design, before both men were recruited in 1997 by forme r Triumph production engineer Allan Hu rd are to join him at the Minnesota factory of the new Excelsior-Henderson. There, the thr ee worked together to head up development of the Super X cru iser, before Wright an d Cronk returned to Britain within the last 12 months to start up Vepro, It may be no coincid ence that their Ll.S, base for the past three years was a stone's throw from the NMI corporate headquarters in Minnesota, nor that Norton's recent appo intment to purchasing manager , Richard Ada ms, worked alongside Wright and Cronk at Excelsior. But Vepro is known in a sho rt time to have acquired a prestigious list of clients in the au tomotive an d motorcycle ind ustry, including off-road specialist CCM, an d now lorton. Though secrecy na turally surrounds their detailed eva luation of the Melling projects for Nor ton, Vepro is relia bly understood to have ad vised NMI again st p ursu ing any of them any further. The Nirvana V-twin cruiser is only a styling mockup, with an engine that contains some wooden parts and has never ru n, so it would require some years and considerable investment to brin g it to the mark et. In any case, this type of mo torcycle is at odds with Norton's spo rting tradition, and wo uld furth ermore be seen as a pseudo-Harley by pot ential cus tomers. Than ks to their recen t experience at Excelsior, Wright and Cronk are aw are of the pitfall s this wou ld represent, even with a hallowed and his toric nam e on the fuel tank. The Man x, on the other hand, wo uld represent in the eyes of the marketplace a copy of a UJM/J apanese inline fou r - just as Triumph in the early da ys of the born-again Bloor era was unju stly accused of building British Kawas aki-clones, And though d evelopment of the V-eight Nemesis is further advanced, Vepro has apparently concluded that its limited appeal 4 L gets real ea KTM has released official details of its LC8 twin-cylinder engine project previously revealed in this space, and wh ich is confirmed for pr esentation at Int ermot 2000 in Munich next Sep tem be r, prior to mak ing its compe tition debut in the 2001 Dakar Rally. The 75-degree V-tw in is cla imed to be th e m o st com pa ct-tw in-cy li n de r mo tor yet br ou ght to market, and cu rrently weig hs less than 123 pounds in its cu rren t ca rbu re ted for m on the Mattighofen factory dyno - fitted with a sixspeed gearbox and electric-start. A fuelinjected version may follow. Altho ug h KTM admits that the exact displacement and engin e d im en sion s hav e no t ye t been finalized , the form er is expected to be somew here betw een 800cc and a full 1000cc, wit h an extre mely competitive power-to-weight ra tio - giving the LC8 the best perform an ce in the big end uro class. Also, KTM has outlined for the first time the development goals of its engineerin g team , led by Wolfgan g Felber, for the LC8 chassis in w hich the new Vtwin eng ine w ill be fitted . This will featur e a sh orter wh eelbase than is usu al for the twi n-cylind er en duro category, bu t with a 21-inch fro nt wheel a nd 18- and pot enti all y high price will ru le out any significa n t return on the major investment nee ded to put it into prod uction. That's ap ar t from the extended time spa n needed to complete R&D of suc h a compl icated design - and the need for special tires still to be developed, to cope with its purported perform ance. This leaves NMI between a rock a nd a hard place in terms of muchneed ed fut ure pr o du ct. Rig h t now they ha ve a s top-gap mo del in the BMW-engined Interna tional 652 street si ng le p roject which the y in heri ted from Norton's former Ge rma n importer, Joe Seifert, when negotiating a pea ce trea ty with him in July thi s year . The treaty was to obtain use of the Norton trademark in Western Eu rope , and ' they are present ly re sty ling the bike prior to resuming production in the spring of 2000. However , it's understood t ha t Vepro's recom mend ation is for N MI to do as man y admirers of the Norton marque ha ve been urging th e born-a gain company to do - devel op a range of parallel-twins 750-1000cc in capa city, based on the Commando family name, with a modern , liquidcooled, fue l-in jected engine. This inclu d es building a Norvil Superbike. This leav es the probl em of how to develop such a fami ly of engines from the ground up , in a sho rtenough time to reassure shareholde rs and co n v ince p ot ential customers th at , thi s tim e a rou n d , Nort on is finally for real. However, it' s understo od that N MI management is negotiatin g w ith eng ine manu facturers Web er in Sw itzerland, and their clien ts MuZ in German y. What they want are su pplies of the light (123 pounds with throttle bodies), compact, wa ter-cooled, fuel-injecte d, 360-degree parall eltwin, eight-valve MPE engine measu ring 750cc in 85 x 66m m basem od el g u ise, w hic h is already runn ing on th e Web er dyno. The e ng ine is fitt ed with a Mu Zdesigned six-spee d gea rbox fo r mo torcycle application, and its existence was revealed here last month. There's a common factor wit h Vepro here, w ho wou ld most likely be respo nsible for crea ting the new Norton Commando r a ng e arou nd this eng ine - fo r the Weber/MZ design uses Sagem EFI, the sa me supplier with which Vep ro 's Neil Wright wo rked when at Triu mph and Excelsior-He nderson. Tho ugh the weekly British medi a th at has consisten tly ramped u p Melling's series of other-wo rldly desig ns wiII do ubtless seek to pu t a d ifferent spin on this, the fact is that No rton's fate now at last seems to be in the hand s of more realistic man agemen t, head ed up by Tastad a nd Kilpatri ck. That pairing recognizes the need for the compa ny' s revival to be coaly assesse d and calmly planned by ind ustry experts. NMI management has had a cold shower of reality afte r availing themselves of Vepro 's proven expertise to ge t a han dle on the dream-world efforts so far expended in reviving Brita in's oldest an d most historic marque. But at least Norton now appears to be focu sin g on its rea l op po rtunities, in st ead of pulli ng an increasing succession of impractical, engineering-led d esigns ou t of a hat, wit hou t regard to timefrarne, deve lopment costs, or commercial viability. Norton ent husiasts won' t be the on ly ones hoping that , this time arou nd, NMI hasn 't left it until too late.

• Cover