Round Up

ROUND UP

JOE PARKHURST

LAST SUMMER I had an extremely pleasurable visit to the Norton-Villiers factory in Andover. England, in the company of the firm’s dynamic managing director, Dennis Poore. I got a first-hand look at the shiny, spanking new assembly plant and the production of the new AJS 250 and 370 motocross bikes, one of which is tested in this issue. By the time you read this, new 250s will be available in the U.S. and the 370 is not far behind. I had an opportunity to ride both versions on the neat little circuit behind their racing development shop, not far f rom the main factory on the Thruxton race course grounds.

I bashed around on the motocross 250, then turned things over to AJS’s sensational Andy Roberton. 1 can't remember seeing anyone throw a motorcycle through the air any farther!

Norton-Villiers staffers also wheeled out their wild 750 Norton production road racer (tested in ('W, Dec. ’69), and I took a lap or two around the smooth race course. N-V factory rider Peter Williams showed me the ropes and was the first to pull me off the thing when it looked as if I might get in trouble. 1 had been out of my cast only a short time, so I was a hit rusty.

Norton-Villiers has assembled a team of riders, engineers and mechanics that I was quite impressed with. They are young and eager, and seem to be extremely capable. Under chief development engineer Peter Inchley, a tough taskmaster, they have built the motocross team in a remarkably short time. Roberton and Swedish teammate Bengt Arne-Bonn are touring with the InterAm series, and Malcolm Davis of England also is an AJS motocross team member.

Peter Williams handles the road racing tasks, while overall supervision of racing and engineering is by England's famed designer Alec Issogonis, N-V’s engineering director. Bob Trigg is also a development engineer. We were treated royally by N-V public relations man John McDermott. Skeptics about England’s motorcycling future will do well to take another look at the things going on around Andover. The N-V crew are all youthful enthusiasts as well as being competent engineers. In a very short time they have built the AJS into a serious world contender, and made a lot of us old-timers happy by bringing back a beloved set of initials.

N-V’s racing department is housed in a building constructed during World War 11; several other buildings in the area still contain relics of their war time duties. The circuit was an air field during the war, and still is being used by private aircraft. The race course was originally a perimeter road used for parking planes. Today it looks almost as it did in the early ’40s. When the N-V crew first moved in, pin-ups of Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable still were plastered to the stone walls. They tried to remove them intact, but this was impossible. Great shame. The place reeks with nostalgia, especially for us war buffs. Shops now used for bike and engine work were aircraft engine repair shops, made of stone and built to last.

Norton-Villiers Corporation has announced the appointment of J.H.J. Hope, known to his friends as Joe, to be western division vice president and general manager.

Joe has been in the motorcycle business from its pre-boom years, and beforejoining Norton-Villiers in December 1969 was corporate director of advertising, sales promotion and public relations for BSA/Triumph in the United States.

In his new position he will have the general responsibility for developing sales of Norton and AJS motorcycles in the seven western states. Bill Colquhoun remains executive vice president of Norton-Villiers but will spend a greater a amount of his time in England.