Norton's Savior or Scourge?

Dennis Poore illustration by Michael Koelsch.

It was a journalistic dream come true: sharing pages in Cycle World magazine with the great Peter Egan. My charter as Senior Editor focused on publishing three to four weekly web articles, while editing several staff and freelance articles. My editor asked if I could write a sidebar about British industrialist Dennis Poore to complement Egan’s feature “The Norton Commando At Fifty” for the December 2017 issue, republished in its entirety below.

British entrepreneur Roger Dennistoun Poore (1916-1987) was a risk-taker from the cradle to the grave, best remembered for diversifying the Manganese Bronze Holdings family business of marine propeller manufacturing to fund the takeover of failing Associated Motor Cycles (AMC) to form Norton-Villiers in August 1966. Five brands were included: Norton, AJS, Matchless, James, and Francis-Barnett, with the jewel being Norton.

The London native quickly decided to push for the development of a Norton model to debut at the Earls Court Cycle Motorcycle Show a year later, led by one of his college tutors, former Rolls-Royce engineer Dr. Stefan Bauer. Poore was eyeing the lucrative US market and its appetite for 650 and 750cc twins.