1967 Norton Atlas cafe racer – $30,000
Norton Atlas for sale
SELLER SAYS: Original bike with matching numbers. This is the model that Paul Dunstall made famous. The GT Falcon of motorcycles. Not until the modern age of circumferential alloy box frames has anyone made a frame as good as Norton’s Featherbed. Rebuilt completely (not restored, so she gracefully wears her age) in 2015 and has travelled a mere 600 miles since. (1000km). 1967 Norton Atlas 750cc , the last of the Featherbeds. 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. External oil filter and braided lines. Twin point and coil ignition with LiPo battery in cut-out under tank, along with Lucas Capacitor Discharge provides reliable starting and running. All of the little niggly things that plagued British bikes has been addressed to create a reliable bike that is a pleasure to ride and will turn heads anywhere you take her. Contact Steve on 0412 079 999 (Dunbogan, NSW). Ref#220922P
EDITOR’S COMMENT: 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 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.
