The Norton Commando John Player Special was a 1974 limited edition version of the

Norton Commando The Norton Commando is a British Norton-Villiers motorcycle with an OHV pre-unit parallel-twin engine, produced by the Norton Motorcycle company from 1967 until 1977. Initially having a nominal ''750 cc'' displacement, actually , in 19 ...

that was fitted with bodywork styled to reproduce the successful Formula 750 works racers that were sponsored by cigarette manufacturers

John Player & Sons John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. In 1901, the company merged with other companies to form The Imperial Tobacco Company to face competition from US ma ...

. The machine was based on the Mk2A 850 Commando. Around 200 of these machines were made, of which about 120 were exported to the US. The bike was expensive, selling for around $3,000 in the US, $500 more than a standard Commando.

Background

Dennis Poore Roger Dennistoun "Dennis" Poore (19 August 1916, Paddington, London – 12 February 1987, Kensington) was a British entrepreneur, financier and sometime racing driver. He became chairman of NVT during the dying days of the old British motorcy ...

, chairman of

Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...

had instigated the formation of a works racing team to enter

Formula 750 Formula 750 was a FIM motorcycle road racing series based on a 750 cubic centimeter engine capacity. History The series began in 1971 as a collaboration between the American Motorcyclist Association and the Auto Cycle Union. The FIM adopt ...

events in late 1971 with sponsorship from John Player to promote their

John Player Special John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England. In 1901, the company merged with other companies to form The Imperial Tobacco Company to face competition from US ma ...

brand of cigarettes. Design and development engineer Peter Williams, who was also their works rider, was the chief designer of the racers. The team had some success in 1972 and in 1973, on a newly designed bike, the team won 14 international races. These included three races at the

Transatlantic Trophy The Transatlantic Trophy (initially called Anglo-American Match Races) was an annual series of motorcycle races between the United Kingdom and America held from 1971 to 1988 and again in 1991. They were mostly held over the Easter weekend at Br ...

and the Formula 750cc

Isle of Man TT The Isle of Man TT or Tourist Trophy races are an annual motorcycle racing event run on the Isle of Man in May/June of most years since its inaugural race in 1907. The event is often called one of the most dangerous racing events in the world ...

. In British domestic races,

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won the British 750 cc Championship and Williams came second in the MCN Superbike Championship. To capitalise on the success of the race bikes, Norton decided to produce a variant of the Commando styled to resemble the racers.

Design

Norton's stylist/product designer, Mike Oldfield, was given the design responsibility for the bike. Initially it was to have been a cafe racer, but when the works team started entering endurance races with an abbreviated fairing fitted with twin headlights, the design direction changed. A styling prototype was built from a Mk2A Commando with the bodywork hand-formed out of aluminium and moulds for the fibreglass bodywork made. Fibreglass petrol tanks were illegal at the time so an extended Roadster tank was used with the fibreglass covering it. The single seat had a large hump which had a storage compartment inside. The fairing was made by Avon, who made the fairings for the racers, and was fitted with twin headlights and swooped down to cover the sides of the engine. Rearsets and clip-on handlebars were fitted and the exhaust finished in

black chrome Chrome plating (less commonly chromium plating) is a technique of electroplating a thin layer of chromium onto a metal object. A chrome-plated item is called ''chrome''. The chromed layer can be decorative, provide corrosion resistance, ease ...

Production

Production started in late 1973 and the first bikes were in the dealer's showroom in April 1974. The machines were assembled on the Commando production lines in

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia * Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Ando ...

and

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunian ...

. Although most of the bikes were fitted with the 850 engine, the Norton catalogue did list the model being available with the short-stroke engine used on the 1974 racer, either in full race tune or detuned for road use. It is not known how many 750s were made. Norton had planned to produce 1,000 machines but this was optimistic, and only around 200 machines were produced in total with about 120 going to the US.

References

Bibliography

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Norton Commando John Player Special Commando John Player Special Motorcycles introduced in 1974 Motorcycles powered by straight-twin engines