1946 Norman Autocycle

 

For some time, we had wanted to find a Norman motorcycle, a rarity here in the U.S. Our last name is Norman, and our family is from the U.K., so you can see how our interest was piqued. In May of 2006, we came across an eBay UK listing for a 1947 Norman Autocycle.

The price was right and the seller agreed to break it down into three boxes and ship it UPS to us in southern California. (And I conveniently forgot all about the exchange rate as I thought with great happiness that I had scored this shipping for only $250. Surprise! When you're dealing with UPS in Great Britain, they use pounds, not dollars. And the exchange rate was not our friend.

Two weeks later, the UPS guy manhandled these onto the porch.

Upon opening the boxes, we discovered a bike with unlimited potential.

Well, at least the fenders weren't so bad.

After some bead blasting

And countless hours of polishing, buffing, painting and reconstruction

This 1946 Norman Autocycle lives on......

Read more about the Norman Motorcycle Company Here.

History of the Norman Motorcycle Co.

The Norman brothers started out with bicycles in 1921, and in 1937 (or 38) began building 98cc Villiers powered autocycles (the Norman Motobyk) and later took over the Rudge 98cc Autocycle. They also built motorcycles powered by Villiers engines of 125cc to 247cc. Normans were rebadged as Rambler in some countries. Early postwar machines used British Anzani 250cc engines, but they soon reverted to Villiers. During the 1950s they produced trials machines, fielding eight of these in the 1954 Scottish Six Day event.

Norman bought the German Achilles tooling in about 1957. Both Villiers and Sachs engines were used in their Nippy mopeds of 1957. In 1961 Charles and Fred Norman retired and sold Norman to the Raleigh group which produced machines for another year, in Nottingham, before ceasing production.





A more complete history of the Norman Motorcycle company can be found HERE

And some good stuff can be found HERE as well.