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The Commando Interpol
To get back into the Police and
military market, Norton recruited Neale Shilton, Triumphs Police sales
manager, who developed a Police bike against the often considerable
resistance and envy of other members of the Norton management- I
recommend reading Shiltons book "A Million Miles ago".
With a minimum of modifications and
outlay, he created a bike that was acceptable for the police and often
kept the production lines rolling when other orders had dried up- right to
the end in 1977. The press picture above shows one of the very early
versions, ca.1970, with its most prominent feature, functional ugliness,
in plain view.
The minimum outlay for tooling meant that the fairing was bought in from
Avon Fairings. Police safety regulations demanded the petrol tanks had to
be made from metal, not glass fibre; as all Norton Commando tanks at the
time were made from glass fibre, Shilton used up steel pressings for
slimline featherbed petrol tanks, equipping them with a bottom that fitted
the Commando frame. The speedo had to be accurate, so a
"non-pair" of Chronometric speedo and magnetic revcounter were
used. Some petrol tanks had a boxed-in section on top for the radio
equipment of the day; most were fitted with the (terrible) "fits all
but nothing rightly" Craven carriers and panniers, employing 16 half
clamps, 30 distance pieces, 6 stays, and general shoddyness as a main
design feature. In later days, this competed- in all markets bar the most
pro-British- with no success whatsoever with the far
more professionally looking BMW models that had easy-to fit,
purpose-designed pannier equipment that, for purely patriotic reasons, was
not allowed on them in England, but replaced by the same 1960s leftovers
made by Craven. The front mudguard looks suspiciously like a featherbed
item, but was made in fibreglass, I believe.
The fully equiped bike above, possibly a year earlier than the press photo
at the top (see conical clutch dome), shows a top box but not the (worse)
side panniers.
I remember the days when Commandos switched from the
"Oh-no-please-no-British-crap" status to the
"Classic-British-Bike-with-proud-Heritage" status. After all
chicken sheds had yielded their civilian Commandos, these clapped out
ex-Police machines came on the market. As Bob Rowley, ex-tester of these
fine motorcycles, wrote, a tester would wear out a bike in 1/10th of the
distance of a private owner; a policeman would need little more time than
a tester, because a) he did not pay for the petrol and tires; b) it was
not his bike and c) he could not be pulled for speeding!
The above nasty remarks
aside, the "Interpol" was a profitable and long-term business
for Norton in the Commando era, and made it in different guises right
through to the 850Mk3 version.Original Interpols must be hard to come by
these days, as most of them were converted into civilan models in the
1980s.
Interpol in front of Police Nissen Hut, Thruxton
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