Horological Meandering

219
3826

• Show profile
• Show other posts

Bremont and Norton

Bremont chose this years’ Festival of Speed to launch their collaborative watch with Norton motorcycles. In the past year, Norton Motorcycles celebrated a hundred years since the company’s founding and the name ‘Norton’ first started appearing on the petrol tank of the motorbike. However, and the reason for the launch of the watch, was that Norton also witnessed their re-birth under new ownership.

In the past the perennial favourite of the Isle of Man TT races, Norton motorbikes were famed for winning the prestigious event in the earlier decades of the twentieth century. However, the modern era (since about the 1960’s) has not been so kind to Norton. Competition from Japanese manufacturers in the form of racing and road machines as well as rising production costs led to Norton’s decline. A succession of owners since the late 1960’s until just last year has seen Norton motorbikes appear and disappear from showrooms and from the streets. Just last year the Norton name was acquired by Stuart Garner, a UK businessman, and re-launched Norton in its Midlands home at Donnington Park to manufacture the NRV588 racer and Commando.

Norton Motorcycles became a name synonymous with innovation and racing in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. Initially, after World War II, success did not return immediately to Norton. The multi-cylinder engines of Italian motorbikes and AJS proved to be too fast against the single cylinder Nortons. Norton tried to experimenting with frames and in particular, with the help of the McCandless Brothers in Belfast, a new tubular design frame, Norton would race successfully again. Harold Daniell (a successful Isle of Man TT racer with three victories) tested the new Norton frame in 1950 and declared that it was like "riding on a featherbed"; the name stuck and it is now known as the ‘featherbed’ frame.





The Bremont Norton chronograph has the same Valjoux 7750 movement in (as their other chronographs), but the dial has been re-thought and the rotor will be re-designed. Once again, I was looking at and photographing a prototype. I rather liked the dial. The numerals were in the same font and type as the name ‘Norton’ that appears on the petrol tank. Apparently the ‘Norton’ name as it appears was designed by Ethel Norton, the daughter of James Lansdowne Norton's (founder). The sub-dials are (as with all Bremont watches) clearly legible and ideal for timing that sprint up the hill at Goodwood. The fonts and layout are the same as found on the dials that are part of the Norton motorbike. The watch is given the same degree of testing as all their other chronographs and given the speed and vibration from the motorbikes as they raced up the hill at Goodwood, this is a necessary element of their production.













On the wrist of Giles English: