1958 Norton Dominator 99. Owner: Cliff Schoening. Photos by Ralph Noble.
This was the bike that got a lot of Americans excited about the Norton marque. Brit bikes were relatively rare in the U.S. in the early 1950s, with mainly Triumph and BSA battling it out. Yanks had long read about Norton?s racing successes, like when a 500 Manx came in second at Daytona in 1949, but were not much interested in the single-cylinder Internationals, civilianized versions of the racing Manx. What they wanted was an easy to start twin, with enough zip to run up to the semi-magical 100 mph mark. The 500cc Dominator 88 did not quite have the punch needed, but when it was bored and stroked to 600cc (actually 597cc), that stoked some serious interest.
Some people, both industry and consumers, were a little surprised that Norton had not gone to the popular 650 size, which Triumph had done in 1950 with the Thunderbird, and BSA a year later with the Golden Flash. Nortons began to be imported in 1949, and had six U.S. distributors. After the arrival of the 99 the distributors apparently got together and jointly bought the first full-page ad seen in the bike magazines–in the November ?66 “Cycle.” After a very complimentary road test in the September issue. Norton was an old company, with James Lansdowne Norton founding the Norton Manufacturing Company at the age of 29, back in 1898, when it started manufacturing chains for the burgeoning bicycle market. But motorized bicycles were t...