Vintage Thing No.51 - Norman B4 Sports

This bike has to be the most stylish British tow stroke roadster without exception. I was captivated by its italianate lines many years ago when it appeared on Steve Wilson's book British Lightweight Two Strokes. I've probably mentioned before that, as a lanky git, 250 motorcycles are the practical lower limit for me but that doesn't stop me liking their delicacy and the "born with wheels" feeling a small and nimble bike can give you.

It might be hereditary, too, My dad went on a European odyssey with my Uncle Phil on Uncle Phil’s 250 Panther and that had a Villiers 2T engine just like this Norman. They had a good time although the frame broke in Italy and we used to have a photo, now unfortunately lost, of an Italian blacksmith welding it up.

There was a good reason for Steve Wilson to choose the Norman B4 for the cover for his book - it's a good all round bike with few flaws and about as good a bike as a Villiers powered twin can get. And for me the Norman B4 Sports has the paradoxical attractions of not only looking good but being both rare and cheap.

I really ought to get one.

There are many other bikes that use the Villiers 2T 250 twin but none of them look this good or handle this well. The leading link forks were a Norman speciality and Norman have a competition pedigree that other Villiers 250 twins lack. A Norman B3, which is not quite so stylish, came second in the 250 class in the 1959 Thruxton 500. With its tuned engine it could do 90 mph. The B4 built on this reputation with a lighter frame and cafe racer styling that would have appealed to every cash strapped young blood of the time. It's got a flyscreen, dropped ace bars and a petrol tank of Tebaldi design. The 6 inch brakes are apparently a bit iffy but it's easy to forget (for me anyway) that this is a fifty year old motorcycle.

The Villiers twin is a 50mm x 63.5 unit with cast iron barrels and Villiers experts favour the 2T over the later 4T design due to latter’s harshness. The competition Norman had a tuned engine, with a 25mm carburettor and a compression ratio of 10:1 , as opposed to 8.25:1, but the B4 was restricted by a 22mm carb so ran out of puff at 70.

I remember talking to a noted Villiers tuner once who had persuaded circuit racing Villiers singles to get over 100 mph. I asked him what he thought of the twins and he said their bottom ends were too weak for the kind of things he did to his singles.

This year at the Great Dorset Steam Fair I saw my first ever Norman B4. The photos aren’t brilliant for the bikes were crammed into a marquee. For some reason exhibitors at most shows like to park them side by side whereas it’s better to look at them if they are parked end to end. But you still get an idea of what a nice looking bike this is.

Back in the eighties, at the St Agnes Traction Engine Rally, I saw a 225cc Norman. This intrigued me for, at the time, I had a Honda 125 (not a Vintage Thing) and the insurance category for that went up to 225cc. Villiers sought to exploit this with the 1H 225cc single (a 63mm bore instead of the full size 66mm x 72mm 250 engine that I’ve got). The badge of the Norman warrior caught my eye as well but the name of Norman hardly inspires awe these days. Most people mishear it for Norton.

My awareness of Norman motorcycles dates back even more for a neighbour had a Norman Nippy moped when I was a boy. I can remember him riding it over a plank in the lane when my dad was digging up the road to connect our house to the mains water supply. I don’t know how nippy a Norman Nippy was but I suspect “not quite”. They were better than pedalling I suppose and where we lived in Cornwall there was no public transport except for the market bus on a Wednesday.

Superbike magazine once pointed out the peculiar names of British bikes. It was at the time of the “What’s yours called?” advertising campaign for the new Renault 5. British bikes of the 60’s could be called James, Norman or Francis Barnett – sometimes shortened to the even worse Fanny B.

Most Villiers powered bikes were so damned ornery that they aspire to the description of grey porridge. They were designed to provide utilitarian transport for the masses and weren’t quite so aspirational as scooters. There was no style statement associated with Villiers – the rockers had their Triumphs and the mods their Lambrettas. But the Norman was as good an attempt at a sporting Villiers powered bike as you can get.

Villiers bikes have been the Cinderellas of the classic British bike scene for years. An owner once told me that “The good thing about these old bikes is that they are so n-n-n-naff.”

A cheap old bike costs almost as much to restore as an expensive old bike. Painting and wheel building and any cosmetic work soon make up a larger proportion of the rebuild cost than simple engine and gearbox parts. Add in the rarity of cycle parts compared to something like a Triumph twin and the difficulties could soon outweigh one’s enthusiasm – unless it’s s piece of rolling sculpture like the Norman B4 Sports. Even then, you wouldn’t get your money back on the restoration but that’s not the point. The point is relishing something that looks right. And if it goes, that’s a bonus.

The Norman B4 Sports was produced for the 1961 model year only. The firm had been founded by Fred and Charlie Norman in 1937 but in 1961 they decided to retire and sold out to Raleigh who prompted stopped motorcycle production. So the B4 Sports was their swansong. When considering the question “Whatever happened to the British motorcycle industry?” Norman went out with a bang. They are still fundly remembered in the Ashford area in Kent and there is an active club.

As a lapsed industrial designer, I’d really like to know who was behind this bike. Was it the founders, Fred and Charlie? Or was it an unknown and unsung draughtsman “with flair”? For that is what an industrial designer back then would have been called.

And who or what was this Tebaldi? Did Tebaldi design the bike? Or was it an aftermarket supplier of sporty tanks? Steve Wilson quotes the tanks as being of Tebaldi design so the name has some significance.

The only other reference to Tebaldi that I can find on the net is this one about Paloma Sports mopeds and this suggest that Tebaldi was a name in Italian motorcycle style in the 1960s, much like a well-known mod would have been a “face” in 1960s Britain

So who was Tebaldi? And who did such a good job on the Norman B4 Sports?