User:Trident13/Norton Villiers Triumph

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Norton Villiers Triumph were a British motorcycle manufacturer, formed by the British Government to continue the UK motorcycling industry. Like most Government interventions into British industry, the company eventaully failed.

In 1973, the British government's attempt to rescue the motorcycle industry forced a merger of the BSA (including their subsidiary Triumph ) and Norton-Villiers, in return for funds to remain in business. The resultant company was called Norton Villiers Triumph (NVT).

NVT was liquidated in 1978 but rotary engined motorcycles appeared under the Norton name for the next 15 years with insufficient sales, until the Norton name as we know it withered away, as had BSA, Sunbeam, James, Frances-Barnett, AJS, and Matchless. All were companies absorbed by other companies on the way to Norton-Villiers-Triumph.

Even though Norton Villiers Triumph is no more, motorcycles bearing the Triumph name are still being made.

[edit] Input

By the middle of 1972 the BSA-Triumph group were in serious financial trouble and the Government decided to bail the company out with a financial rescue package, providing it would agree to merge with Norton Villiers. Norton Villiers Triumph was duly formed and the new company got off to a shaky start. In January 1973 the ‘Mk.5 Fastback’ was launched and the ‘Long Range’ was discontinued. In April the ‘Roadster’, ‘Hi Rider’ and the ‘Interstate’ all began to use a new 828c.c. engine. Development work also began on a 500c.c. twin, stepped piston engine, with a monocoque pressed steel frame. The new engine was called the ‘Wulf’, but the project was dropped in favour of developing the rotary Wankel type engine which was inherited from BSA. Things went well that year for the Norton racing team, as Peter Williams won the 1973 Formula 750 T.T. and Mick Grant came in second. Unfortunately the company itself was in deep financial trouble and redundancy notices were issued at Andover, which was followed by a sit-in at the works. The situation continued to deteriorate in 1974 and came to a head in June when the Government withdrew its subsidy. The 750 Commando. Courtesy of Jim Boulton. There was a general election and luckily the incoming Labour Government restored the subsidy. The company decided to close two of its sites and concentrate production at Wolverhampton and Small Heath. This caused a lot of industrial unrest at Meriden, and resulted in a workers’ sit in, which stopped production at Small Heath. By the end of the year the company had lost over 3 million pounds. Even during these hard times the company still managed to produce new models. 1974 saw the release of the ‘828 Roadster’, the ‘Mk.2 Hi Rider’, the ‘JPN Replica’ and the ‘Mk.2a Interstate’. Only two of these were to continue in production the following year. Early in 1975 the company reduced its range of models to just two machines, the ‘Mk.3 Interstate’ and the ‘Roadster’. Both machines were improved by the fitting of an electric starter, a left side gear change, right foot brake and rear disk brake. Things went from bad to worse in July when the Industry Minister recalled a loan for 4 million pounds and refused to renew the company’s export credits. The company then went into receivership and redundancies were announced for all of the staff at the various sites. At Wolverhampton an action committee was formed in an effort to continue production and develop the ‘Wulf’ engine. The works were picketed and a prototype machine called the ‘Norton 76’ was produced. This came to nothing as the Wolverhampton works had closed for good. It was a sad end to such an important company, and a bitter one. Many of the local workers never received the money that was owed to them. Norton Villiers Triumph managed to survive when the Government stepped in to save part of the company, but unfortunately this did not include the Wolverhampton works. The British motor cycle industry was in its death throes. The market for British machines disappeared, there was not enough demand to maintain the factory. With a strange burst of enthusiasm the company bought the gates from the now demolished Tong Castle and erected them at their works entrance in Marston Road. It was a last gesture.

Triumph had been owned by the BSA Group since 1951. In 1972, for various reasons, the BSA Group went bust. At this time, another British engineering conglomerate, Manganese Bronze, owned Norton Villiers, being the remains of Associated Motor Cycles (which had gone bust in 1966). The British government of the time had a policy of putting taxpayers money into what it called 'strategic' industries - because BSA and Triumph had won Queen's Awards for Exports only a few years earlier, the industry was deemed 'strategic' and thus worthy of financial support. However, the government wouldn't put money into two separate companies, or into one and not the other; it believed that one big company was more likely to have a chance of competing with the Japanese. So Manganese Bronze parted with Norton Villiers in exchange for the non-motorcycling bits of the BSA Group (which was a very good deal), NV was merged with BSA/Triumph but, as it was BSA that'd gone t*ts-up financially, it was decided (probably wisely at the time but ultimately to no avail) to give the BSA name a quiet funeral and call the new motorcycle company Norton Villiers Triumph. NVT inherited three large motorcycle factories - Small Heath (ex-BSA), Wolverhampton (Norton) and Meriden (Triumph). Although Meriden was the most modern, its workers had the worst productivity of the three and were the most militant, which was saying something in both a sector and entire economy then infamous for strikes, go-slows, works-to-rule, etc. Dennis Poore, MD (= US 'CEO') of Norton Villiers had been put in charge of NVT. NVT had decided it needed only two factories and, on 14th September 1973, Poore baldly announced to a meeting in the Meriden canteen that the plant was to be run down and closed by the following February. Again, while this was undoubtedly the right decision at the time, the handling was utterly incompetent and led directly to the famous 'workers sit-in'. That still might have been the eventual end of the story had not the aftermath of the Middle East oil crisis resulting from the 1973 Israel-Arab War, combined with a political battle between the same British government and the National Union of (coal) Mineworkers that reduced British workers to a 'three day week', due to lack of electricity, led to a General Election in February 1974 that saw the Conservative Party-dominated government ousted in favour of a Labour Party-dominated government. The Labour Party then espoused and championed the cause of 'workers co-operatives' - i.e. all the workers in a company were the owners of the company. The Meriden workers were a ready-made model the day the Labour Party came to power, so taxpayers' money and massive political clout were quickly brought to bear.