Norton Villiers Triumph was a British motorcycle manufacturer, formed by the British Government to continue the UK motorcycling industry. Like most Government interventions into British industry, the company eventually failed.
Norton Villiers Triumph was a British motorcycle manufacturer, formed by the British Government to continue the UK motorcycling industry. Like most Government interventions into British industry, the company eventually failed.
Triumph had been owned by the BSA Group since 1951, but by 1972 the merged BSA-Triumph group were in serious financial trouble. British Government policy at the time was to save strategic industries with tax payers money, and as BSA-Triumph had won the Queen's Awards for Exports a few years earlier, the industry was deemed 'strategic' enough for financial support. The Conservative Government under Ted Heath concluded to bail out the company, provided that to compete with the Japanese it merged with financially troubled Norton Villiers (the remains of Associated Motor Cycles, which had gone bust in 1966), a subsidiary of British engineering conglomerate Manganese Bronze.
The merged company was created in 1973, with Manganese Bronze exchanging the motorcycle parts of Norton Villiers in exchange for the non-motorcycling bits of the BSA Group - mainly Carbodies, the builder of the Austin FX4 London taxi; the classic "black cab." As BSA was both a failed company and a solely British known brand (the companies products had always been most successfully marketed in North America under the Triumph brand), the new conglomerate was called Norton Villiers Triumph - effectively the consolidation of the entire once dominant British motorcycle industry, thanks to the rise of the car and the Japan manufacturers.
NVT inherited four motorcycle factories - Small Heath (ex-BSA); Andover and Wolverhampton (Norton); and Meriden (Triumph). Although Meriden was the most modern, its workers were the most militant and had the worst productivity of the three. Dennis Poore, the USA CEO of Norton-Villiers was made Managing Director of NVT, while through his holdings of Norton Villiers shares and the need for reliance on their engineering expertise, a share holder and director of Manganese Bronze.
Still strapped of development cash, the company was restricted to launching developments of existing products, most notably around the popular Norton Commando. With its classical parallel twin probably by now over developed, from April 1975 the ‘Roadster’, ‘Hi Rider’ and the ‘Interstate’ all began to use a new 828c.c. engine - the next model released would all included the hydrolastic engine mountings. What money there was or development, now had to be focused on one engine development. Deciding that the Japanese had taken the market a step forward, NVT were looking for a competitive edge, and had two products which could be developed, both from the BSA side of the company:
Concluding that the commuter market was dying, NVT chose the Wankel, and as Peter Williams won the 1973 Formula 750 Isle of Man T.T. and Mick Grant came in second for the Norton Racing team that year, the decision was to put the new engine in a new Norton motorcycle. However, the infrastructure of the old Norton company was itself being closed down, as the Andover factory closed after a sit-in. This coincided with the Conservative Government of Ted Heath winning the re-election, and the subsidy in light of the three-day week was withdrawn from June 1974 - until the Labour Government of Harold Wilson was voted in.
NVT continued with a program of works closures, deciding to concentrate production on Wolverhampton and Small Heath. Poorly handled in communications, the announcement caused a sit-in at Meriden, which as it produced parts for other factories caused Small Heath to shut down. Forced by American legislation to move all brake controls to the right hand side of the bike (hence, while waiting at a junction to take a left turn, the left leg down on the road meant a lower risk of the falling into the oncoming traffic), the company reduced its range to just four models: two Norton Commando's (the ‘Mk.3 Interstate’ and the ‘Roadster’), and the Triumph Bonneville and Trident T160. All Norton and the T160 were improved by the fitting of an electric starter, a left side gear change, right foot brake and rear disk brake; the Bonneville didn't get the electric start until 1976.
In July 1975, Industry Minister Tony Benn recalled a loan for 4 million pounds and refused to renew the company’s export credits. The company went into receivership, and redundancies were announced for all of the staff at the various sites. Ironically slated by management for closure, the Meriden site survived on a plan to exploit the Bonneville by a worker co-operative with a substantial Government subsidy; the Norton Wankel project was sold off by the receivers into private hands, with slow selling and under developed rotary engined motorcycles appearing under the Norton name for the next 15 year; while Wolverhampton having no viable products to produced was reduced to a workers sit-in and showing of a named "Norton 76," a 500cc twin based on the 'Wulf' concept. After Wolverhampton closed, the workers took the former Tong Castle gates and erected them at the former Marston site.
NVT was eventually liquidated in 1978. Even though Norton Villiers Triumph is no more, motorcycles bearing the Triumph name are still being made. Dennis Poore became Managing Director of Maganese Bronze, until his death in 1987.