Norton CEO Stuart Garner tweets concept photos of an intriguing new 650cc Norton Atlas Scrambler
Norton Motors new 650cc Scrambler is due to make the bike show rounds this year, and just got a signal boost from from company owner and CEO Stuart Garner. Garner's weekend twitter feed included two concept renderings of the upcoming bike, and it's quite a looker.
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The new bike is a fully modern design with hints of the classic Atlas and P11 model scramblers produced by Norton in the 1960s. The look is minimalist with high and low pipe options planned. The power plant is a parallel twin of 650cc mated to 6 speed gearbox with a 70-90 horsepower estimate. Full spec USD forks, adjustable monoshock, and ABS brakes are apparently standard. A 175-horsepower supercharged option should delight wheel stand and tire smoke junkies everywhere. Seriously, 175 ponies in chassis weighing in at 150 kg is impressive and a bit rowdy. Bring it on!
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Norton Motors established a new corporate entity known as "CKD Operations" for Indian production, with an eventual goal of 50 percent local content. Price is competitive with current Kawasaki Z1000, Triumph T120, or Suzuki liter bikes at about £10,000
This puts the Norton in the premium bike range in India, but at a more mid- to upper-range territory in the west. An initial sales run of about 2,000 bikes by 2021 for India means that Norton is looking at Europe and the US markets first.
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Norton has a long and glorious past and the existing 961 models are a huge comeback story, but producing and assembling the the 961 is just not possible in volume. The 650cc series is a future for Norton and, with Royal Enfield's new upcoming 650s, may just be the return of the true midsize motorcycle.
Source: Indian Autosblog, New Atlas
