Price reduced from $32k
SELLERS SAYS: Rebuilt (not restored) completely in 2015 by Tim Rutherford, Pacific Ave, San Pedro California — and has travelled a mere 600 miles (1000km) since. 1967 Norton Atlas 750cc, the last of the Featherbeds. Original bike with matching numbers. Not until the modern age of circumferential alloy box frames has anyone made a frame as good as Norton’s Featherbed. Hand made alloy Manx-style oil tank, seat and fuel tank by Evan Wilcox in Los Angeles. Mikuni single carby, jetted and tuned to suit megaphone exhaust. I also have Dunstall lookalike reverse cone mufflers if loud is not your style. Commando top end. External oil filter and braided lines. Twin point and coil ignition with LiPo battery in cut-out under tank, provides reliable starting and running. All of the little niggly things that plagued British bikes (apart from oil leaks) has been addressed to create a reliable bike that is a pleasure to ride and invokes comments everywhere I take her. Contact Steve on 0412 079 999 (Dunbogan, NSW). Ref#220922P
EDITOR’S COMMENT: Oh, I like this — like a two-wheeled British version of souped-up Falcon GT, this Norton Atlas has been given a going-over with a bunch of period-correct(ish) improvements and one or two 21st Century niceties to create a classic hotrod that starts and goes like something more modern. Norton fanatics will understand the Atlas’ place in history: it was the last Norton with the famous and wildly successful ‘featherbed’ frame, so-named by one of the first racers to use the frame (on a Manx Norton), saying the new frame was akin to riding on a feather bed. That was at the Isle of Man in 1950, so by the late ’60s the frame was showing its age and about to be retired. So too was the Atlas, destined to be replaced by the revered Norton Commando with its ‘isolastic’ frame that used rubber engine mounts to counter vibrations from the big twin. Featherbed fans will tell you that, from a handling point of view, the isolastic frame was a step backwards (although Commando fans might not agree). Either way, this bike of Steve’s looks to be an absolute corker.
