We are very excited to announce our collaboration with Andover-Norton’s global workshop strategy.
“During the ten years of its production run (1967-1977), nine out of ten Norton Commando motorcycles were shipped outside of Britain with a majority of these being to the United States,” says Andover-Norton’s Managing Director Karl Smith. “Because of this, the ‘Colonies’ are obviously a major consumer of Andover-Norton’s OEM parts.”
This became apparent at this summer’s International Norton Owners Association {INOA) National Rally in New Hampshire during the week-long tech sessions hosted by Classic Bike Experience (CBE) and supported by Andover-Norton. Some of the similarities between the markets include networking for tech support (especially among INOA members) and an ever-shrinking number of vintage motorcycle repair shops.
Some of the larger differences between the US and the UK markets include longer average rides and more customization for reliability, maintainability, and safety. There are also more earlier Commandos in the US than the UK.
Following the rally, Andover-Norton’s Managing Director, Karl Smith and Engineer, Ashley Cutler took the opportunity to visit our shop here in Essex, Vermont where 75% of our business is work done on Norton Commandos. We shared our strategy of focusing on factory-street machine repairs and restorations vs racing and high-performance. They took note of our capacity to do stand-alone motor rebuilds, having designed and fabricated our own break-in test stand to ensure everything is working correctly before shipping.
We created an ISO 9000 style spec/work instruction set for the full range of Commando motors, and we asked the Andover-Norton reps to validate and critique our approach. The goal in doing so was to build “factory spec” motors with OEM Andover parts. Our shop manager, Sherb Lang has created an online Norton Commando Engine Rebuild Cost Calculator where you can select the level of build and bling that is best suited to your taste and budget.
On their flight back to the UK, the wheels started turning…
“Andover Classics has become a huge asset to our company in a short period of time,” says Karl Smith. “Putting our OEM parts on customer bikes is the ultimate test and provides invaluable learning and feedback to our engineers. Given that in our experience, UK owners are more keen to have stock builds, we started realizing the potential for collaboration with CBE to pilot the idea of Factory Authorized Workshops in our various markets.”
Both Andover-Norton and CBE are now fully invested in getting your beautiful, vintage motorcycle back on the road, and keeping it there.
With this goal in mind, we both see the value-added Norton OEM Services we now provide for CBE customers as follows:
- Fixed pricing based on customer preferences;
- Standard turn-around times of approximately 90 days;
- Standardized, proprietary build specifications;
- OEM parts lists for each production year;
- Andover Engineering reviewed and approved processes;
- Engine testing prior to delivery to ensure proper functionality;
- Standardized, proven shipping containers for safe delivery.
While the initial focus at CBE will be on engines, due to the complexity and risk, we plan to also standardize gearbox and other subsystem factory spec rebuilds in short order. As always, we can provide a full range of repairs and restoration for your Norton.