1926 Norton, Hot-rod or Not-a-rod?

I built this 1926 Norton about 15 years ago, The motor is full of period tuning bits and punched put 603cc.

I have always called it my Hot-rod Norton.


So, is it a Hot-rod or Not-a-rod that is the question?



Oh and sorry about the clutter in the shed...!

 

No way, it's cool the way it is

 

Hot Rod Thumper !

 

Hot rod or not! GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!!! I'll send my son round to pick it up. He live in Sth. Lincs. (Nr. Holbeach)
Charlie!!

 

cool, but what's the red car in the background?
just curious...

 

Pretty kool, looks like a mix of zero engineering style and vintage board racers.
Is it a resto of a racing bike or modified?

 

Does it matter what you call it - it´s just really cool.
(I wondered for a split second why the exhaust was coming out of the handlebars!)

 

Questions answered.

The red car in the background is a '48 Allard L tourer, winner Rallye Soleil Cannes 1950. I've got a nice flatty in that one (Heads, duals, camshaft, headers etc).

The Norton is part restoration - part recreation. I started with a rusted out frame/forks and most of the engine and gearbox all pretty shot. The rest I bought and scrounged over a couple of years. According to the Norton factory records it started life as a road bike in 1926 but considering that there was practically nothing left of it I decided that it was OK to build it as I wanted. The idea was to make it to look like the racers seen at the UK Brooklands circuit in the mid to late 1920's but they didn't have much in the way of brakes. Hence I had to compromise the style slightly in order to ride it on the road and eventually managed to find and fit some 'Works' type brakes like they used on the road racers of that period.
The tank is based on a design used by a guy named F J Hicks on his Brooklands AJS in 1925.
Everything except the brake pedal, wheel rims/spokes, mudguards, exhaust and handlebars are genuine period stuff and these include some really trick bits like the special race gears that give ultra close ratios and alter the way the hand gear-lever works to make it a single motion from 1st to 2nd and then 2nd to top for much faster changes.
Even the carburettor is a genuine 1920's racing AMAC.

Oh, just over 100mph in case you were wondering.

 

ah ah! aint it tue?

Dude thanx for the info. The carb looks super! got a close up?
Mechanicals of that era are real works of art, period!

 

How neat is that bike.

 

Like it this way

 

Thats awesome bike enjoy it

 

I think he's asking if it's considered a "hot rod".

I say no: motorcycles aren't "hot rods". That term is reserved for cars and trucks, imo.

Great looking bike though!

 

That's just what I'm asking...

Just to stir the hornets up a little further...

If a bike can be 'hot-rodded' is it therefore a hot rod?

 

I think there are other terms for bikes that have been modified in that style, though at the moment the ones I can think of are from later periods. For example, it's a bit like what a café racer would have been if had been build a few decades before that trend took off.

 

I don't give a tinker's cuss what anybody thinks. That my friend,IS a Hot Rod!!!

 

Cafe-racer..pub crawler..603cc outta one cyl.!? its a stump-pullin hot-rod to me...

 

I don't care what to call it, I like it. That's one nice looking bike that looks like it came right out of the era you intended it to.

 

For fun here are a few details of it.
Left hand bar . Valve lifter, clutch, axuilliary oil, advance and retard


Right hand bar. Front brake and throttle levers


Push-rod side of the motor.


Close up of carburettor. The little slide changes the mixture on the move, for use on the Isle of Man TT where the altitude changes.

 

It has one rod, and it's definately HOT. I'd say it would be called various things in various periods. In the 30's, it might be a clubman special, in the 40's, potential Spitfire material, in the 50's-60's a cafe bike, in the 70's, "not a Commando". Thanks for showing us. Some of us just plain like it whatever the name. I've got a 50' Inter, 51' 500T and 69' Dunstall Atlas which I call "Artful Bodges". If you want to get further confused, look at the Tribaker below....

 

Jockey Journal man!! COOL!

 

Pics of the engine details are Droooooooool!
Engine art?

 

Awesome bike! You really need to post those photos over on the Jockey Journal, the H.A.M.B.'s sister motorcycle site.
http://www.jockeyjournal.com/

 

I don't think it matters too much what you call the motorbike, but it's a fantastic example of what can be created with a mix of original bits and some ingenuity, truly a job well done, certainly worthy of the "Hot Rod" tag, congrats.

 

hotrod is a verb. to modify a machine for more performance... ANY machine. tell the dragboat guys they're not piloting a hotrod.... cuz it doesn't have enough wheels!
that's as pure an example of a real hotrod as i've seen in a long time.

 

spot on.

 

This sums it up. The whole bike looks like something Faberge' would have built to support a mechanical engineering dissertation.

 

it can also be a noun, and in the context of "traditional hot rod" as defined over the years here it doesn't fit., though it would go great over at the JockeyJournal http://jockeyjournal.com

 

In my opinion, any vehicle that has been modified to go faster and better, has been "hot rodded" It is a hot rod thumper.
The first motorcycle that I rode was my brothers B.S.A. 500 single, (love the horn)

 

Sidecar bikes were allowed 600cc. There were a lot of the early bikes and even some of the late Manxes with 600 cc kits. I remember one 600cc Norton that was road racing as a 500cc...