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Norton Commando 961 Returns, Again.


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The new Norton Commando looks virtually identical to the previous generation bike, but India’s TVS has taken steps to modernize the 961cc engine.
The new Norton Commando looks virtually identical to the previous generation bike, but India’s TVS has taken steps to modernize the 961cc engine. (Norton/)

A legendary motorcycle can make a name for a company, and for Norton there’s no question that such a bike exists in the form of the Commando. Now, for the first time since Stuart Garner’s version of the company (Norton Motorcycles Ltd.) went under at the start of 2020, the Commando is coming back from the once-again revived Norton brand (The Norton Motorcycle Co. Ltd.), owned by India’s TVS.

Confirmed on the company’s website, the new bike will be a revival of the Commando 961 that was the backbone of Norton’s range throughout the Stuart Garner era. He bought the Norton brand and the rights to the Commando 961 design from American Kenny Dreer in 2008, who’d gradually developed the machine into a modernized evolution of the original Commandos of the 1960s and ‘70s. The bike reached production in 2010 and remained the company’s main product right until Garner’s version of the company collapsed into bankruptcy in early 2020.

During the Garner era, the Commando 961 and various spin-off models were essentially Norton’s only products. While the V4SS superbike was unveiled in 2016, it took years to creep toward production and only a handful of heavily flawed examples reached customers before Norton closed its doors. Under TVS, the V4 has already been redeveloped into the V4SV superbike and the V4CR cafe racer, and there are plans to finally introduce the Atlas 650cc parallel twins that were shown late in the last decade. But despite the existence of those modern machines, demand for the Commando remains high enough to bring it back.

An overview of the bike shows that the Commando 961 is very similar to the Garner-era bike.
An overview of the bike shows that the Commando 961 is very similar to the Garner-era bike. (Norton/)

It’s no small undertaking, and while the images on Norton’s website show a Commando that looks essentially identical to the old Garner-era 961, we can be certain that TVS has made a host of changes to the bike. Commandos throughout the Garner era were plagued with reliability problems and TVS will be keen to make sure those are a thing of the past. The old bike was also never put through the latest generation of European type-approval program, including the tough Euro 5 emissions tests. Given that the engine can essentially trace its heritage back to designs of the 1960s, getting it through those tests is likely to have required some significant development.

The cafe racer-style tailsection remains largely unchanged.
The cafe racer-style tailsection remains largely unchanged. (Norton/)

In terms of appearance, the new Commando 961 has retained the styling of the previous generation, itself visually a carbon copy of the VR888 that Dreer developed in the ‘90s, later becoming the Commando 952 before finally becoming the Commando 961. The sculpted tank and drooping cafe racer tail are clear to see in Norton’s teaser images. The chassis, tweaked by Spondon during the Garner era, also looks unaltered, complete with Öhlins suspension at each end. That Norton is retaining the “961″ name suggests whatever updates have been made to the engine, the 961cc capacity hasn’t been altered, in turn indicating that the 88mm bore and 79mm stroke are also unchanged. Power is likely to be similar to the 80 hp that the previous Commando 961 managed.

Like the old Commando 961, the new bike isn’t likely to be a mainstream rival to machines like Triumph’s Bonneville, but more of a handmade collectors’ item with a price tag to match, probably coming in at somewhere near $20,000.

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