History is a cyclical thing. Take Norton Motorcycles, for example. It’s a company that has weathered plenty of ups, downs, and sideways struggles, along with allegations of financial malfeasance throughout more than one administration. While that history is well outside the scope of this piece, suffice to say that the ignominy of the Stuart Garner era wasn’t the first time that Norton administrators found themselves in murky waters as far as the law was concerned.
Today, though, we’re here to talk about a completely different Norton, from a completely different time. Joe Seifert owns a 1990 Norton P55 F1 rotary prototype race bike, which was apparently the first one ever to leave the Norton factory in those days. As he tells the story, he had some kind of deal with then-Norton owner Phillippe Le Roux that saw him take delivery of this machine before the production version was quite ready to roll out. (Le Roux was later convicted of deception related to persuading shareholders to invest more money in this particular iteration of Norton, but that conviction didn’t happen until 1998.)
