Well stories of Norton’s rebuilding have been floating around for a while now and many of you might not really know much about their new parent company TVS, but TVS are the 3rd biggest manufacturer in India and if you count how many bikes they could technically produce, now they would sit in the top 5 manufacturers in the world according to some.
I can’t verify that, but they are without a doubt one of the companies expanding out of India and they are set to make their mark on the world stage.
We have been told that despite dropping all of the old range, there will be 6 new bikes from Norton in the near future.
We almost certainly know one of them will be a 450 twin platform based on the new GS450 they are building for BMW, and it would also seem likely they will build their own version of the GS310 they have been building for BMW since its introduction.
Details around the 450 twin are still sparse, but an A2 licence compatible spec would seem likely. That would make it around 46 to 48HP and 180-200 Kg.
So it will be a direct competitor for the Honda NX500, CF Moto MT450 Ibex and the other 500 twins available now.
But at Norton, what is going on beyond that is still shrouded in mystery and conjecture really.
We have been told there will initially be 6 bikes launched under the Norton banner, but what they will be is yet to be seen.
The new 450 engine utilizes a semi wet sump lubrication system with two oil pumps, one for pressure and one for suction. They will be used to circulate the oil and lubricate the gearbox and crankshaft with the oil then filtered through two integrated oil sieves and an oil filter, all of which are easily accessible from the left side of the engine, similar to how the 800GS engine is fed with oil.
So in theory you get the advantages of both a wet and dry sump design. Beyond that we know little right now.
A 300cc single using the GS310 engine could make another entry level bike that could be either road focussed or another all purpose adventure bike, or maybe they will use both engines to power more than one bike in the way many manufacturers do nowadays.
Order books were full for the Ranger and Atlas, but they never came, and TVS announced early on that there were flaws so bad in the designs that they simply saw them as impossible to deliver in the guise they were talked about.
TVS did state clearly they wouldn’t be continuing development of the 650 twin platform and I for one was disappointed with that decision.
Was that a mistake?
Or could the new 450cc engine be re-engineered to deliver a 600cc twin cylinder engine?
That could potentially make for a very light 600cc twin which sounds great to me. But honestly I think they are pie in the sky hopes.
A 450 Scrambler Twin would seem the the obvious choice in today’s market. Tapping into the need for lighter weight adventure bikes and Norton’s heritage, maybe we might also get a cafe racer style bike too.
With a new UK Factory and tariff free trade between India and the UK, they could decide to fight on price without compromising quality, but there are still many questions.
Will we begin to see TVS bikes and Norton bikes as two complementary ranges in the same showrooms? A cheaper lower spec TVS range and a higher spec higher price point Norton range?
Setting up a new dealer network is never easy, but offering both ranges could work. With TVS as a budget friendly version of the higher specced Norton’s.
But there have been some developments that could make for an exciting future for both brands.
The multi-billion-pound company who only began building motorcycles in 1979, entered the Italian market in May 2024 with in a range of bikes including their single-cylinder Apache 310RR sportsbike and the naked 310RTR, along with some small commuters like the I-Qube electric scooter.
They are continuing with plans to expand into the UK and other European markets and obviously have big plans for the future.
For anyone in doubt, this is not a short term venture, They have invested millions already and according to Senior Vice President of TVS’s R&D department, Babu Rengarajan, they see a huge potential in bringing a wide range of products into the European markets.
Having worked within the company for the past 38 years, he has seen the rise of the company first hand and in an interview stated, “The current range of products that we have cater more to markets like Italy, Spain, France, Germany and of course, in the future I think with new products coming out they will appeal to much wider markets.”
He continued “We have our own motor design team, and we manufacture the engines in house, and we have also invested heavily in the electric side of the business”
Despite their relatively short history on 2 wheels, the company was founded in 1911 and has the ability to produce a claimed 4.95 million motorcycles and scooters a year now which would make them the fourth largest manufacturer in the world.
Their Apache range is sold in 75 countries, and the IQube electric scooter has now amassing an incredible 4.5million sales.
They purchased the Norton name for £16 million in April 2020, then pumped in an additional £100m building a new factory in Solihull, and that figure has now climbed to over £200m, as TVS prepares to re-launch an entirely new range of motorcycles, dropping all of the existing range.
Norton will become the flagship brand of the company and they have an R&D team based out of the UK, but there is also a Norton technical team sitting in India working closely with TVS’s own R&D team.
Although yet to be revealed, Norton have stated that a full range of Euro 5+ homologated bikes are coming soon with six bikes expected using three different engine platforms set to be revealed at EICMA in November.
The new range is set to include an all new V4 superbike that will move away from the recently discontinued V4SV, and it is said to be a more modern, Euro5+ compliant motorcycle that is ready for global release.
The previous bike was sold under Single Vehicle Approval rules, limiting the customer base to the UK and making a pre sale test necessary to comply with regulations, however TVS Managing Director Sudarshan Venu announced that all six new bikes will be fully Euro 5+ compliant and available from the summer of 2026 in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and India.
That is some statement of intent. And it will take a herculean effort to set up distribution, parts supply and dealerships in 6 different countries within a year, so they have set themselves a hard target.
He said that it has been a huge challenge for his team, to finish the project while complying with current European emissions standards and a big contrast to the distribution of TVS’s own small capacity singles.
He continued: “There are challenges in terms of regulations, and in Europe there is also strict material regulation in terms of what we use and percentage limits”.
“These are making the products expensive and Europe also, as a market, is expensive. So, we are looking at global platforms. We want to leverage our scale, and our decades of experience of delivering the best quality, and so we continuously learn.”
When asked if the new Norton platforms would be used in TVS-branded motorcycles in the future. He said “The technical teams are very closely knit. At a group level, we share a lot of internal engineering with our Norton colleagues which they build on and what they bring, is their experience with big bikes.”
“All the future plans are integrated. It is something that is being looked at internally as a global company. Norton doesn’t stand alone. We are a global corporation and we will leverage the entire global expertise.”
Read into that what you will, but it sounds very much to me that just as they did with BMW and the 310, the various Norton platforms will go on to be used in the TVS branded bikes at some point.
It now seems likely there will be two 300cc single cylinder bikes, two 450 twins, and two V4 superbikes.
TVS did establish India’s first factory-backed racing team in 1982. Competing on short circuits, as well as motocross, rally, and more. The racing department forms part of TVS’s R&D team, using competition to develop new innovations for their products, and we have seen what they can do with Harith Noah’s TVS Sherco, which has proved such a strong contender in the Dakar, consistently outperforming the factory Sherco team entries.
CEO Babu Rengarajan stated “It is about pushing the limits of performance, but more importantly, how you deliver that performance reliably. There is no room for error, there is no room for mistakes, and you don’t get enough time to think and decide in racing. You have to do the development in the off season, but when the season starts, it puts the engineers on their toes and builds a culture that is both courageous and audacious. We try, and sometimes fail. But one failure doesn’t put you off.”
Outside of India and the Dakar, TVS also runs a one-make series as part of the Asia Road Racing Championship, where heavily modified Apache 310 bikes are used, so they do have a racing heritage.
But TVS has now announced its purchase of Italian design and development company, Engines Engineering.
You have probably never heard of Engines Engineering. I hadn’t, but they are a specialist R&D company based in Bologna, and they have been designing motorcycles for other manufacturers since the late 1970s.
They have apparently developed bikes for Japanese and European manufacturers and even Harley-Davidson. Specialising in bodywork, frame and engine design, but only employing just over 100 people.
The Harley-Davidson XR338 project was an Engines Engineering design, but it never went into production.
Now in MCN’s words “They are a serious third-party company that has helped to develop some of the most popular adventure bikes on the market today.” However, in all my digging I can find very little information about anything they have taken successfully to market other than some scooters and the copy of the old Suzuki Katana based on the new GSXS1000.
I can’t find one single adventure bike design they have been involved in, either in their own marketing material or anywhere else. And note MCN hadn’t gone to the trouble of even trying to name any of their projects.
So despite MCN’s assertion that they have their finger on the pulse of the Euro bike scene, and are a perfect partner for a non-European company that wants to develop a machine for that market. Beyond some work in the 125cc world championship I see very little to show for over 50 years of work.
I could copy their company description here like MCN did, but I see no hard facts. So beyond the name and the location in Italy I see very little.
Now apparently, TVS will use them for prototyping and R&D on motorcycle projects that will be built in India for the European market. But time will tell if it is anything more than a way of introducing the word Italian into some of their designs.
Anyway, that’s it for today.
Thanks as always, why not take a look at some of our other videos as youtube is yet again consistently hiding my content. So I guess I can add them to Moto GP, Dakar, KTM and Triumph on the list of people I upset by not feeding people the same old drivel as all the rest.