With ex-MV Agusta tech guru Brian Gillen at the helm, Norton’s reborn range is rewriting the brand’s future around torque, feel and real-world speed
Reviving one of the most famous motorcycle names of all times, the Manx, is a huge gamble for Norton. But the new Norton brand owners are full of confidence that the 2026 Manx is a worthy successor to that most famous racer of the 1950s.
“The all-new Manx and Manx R will be among the fastest and hardest accelerating motorcycles in the world today, tuned for the road but completely at home on the track,” Norton’s Chief Technical Officer Brian Gillen tells me. “So, to harness the power and augment the chassis control, we have one of the most advanced electronic platforms in production today. Lean-angle sensing traction control, wheelie control, launch control, cruise control that adapts when you’re going through the corners on a highway – all that’s included as stock. Together with Brembo’s most highly advanced Hypure brake calipers, and the latest Bosch ABS system, we have incredible deceleration under braking.
“We believe that the Norton Manx and Manx R are the first production sportbikes to allow all riders, under hard braking, to exceed the 1G barrier in stopping. So, in short, we’ve designed and engineered the Manx, and the Manx R, to have class-leading torque, to have the absolute best braking performance, and the ultimate handling on both road and track, all focused on enhancing the rider’s experience.”
Personally head-hunted by Norton’s owner and company chairman Sudarshan Venu to take over technical direction in the run-up to their relaunch at EICMA 2025, Gillen joined Norton in February 2024 after spending 17 years at MV Agusta. Ironically, MV Agusta was Norton’s premier rival in Grand Prix racing during the classic era six decades ago, and is sure to be one of its major competitors in the high end of the sportsbike market today. Since then, Gillen has led Norton’s 199 dedicated development engineers, split between the UK (73), India (69) and Italy (57), in their drive to create an array of new-generation Norton models, starting with the Manx and Manx R, plus the Atlas and Atlas GT middleweight adventure bikes launched at EICMA 2025.
Norton has not yet released many technical details for its two new ADV models, which are effectively the same bike with different wheels. The more offroad-capable Atlas has 19-inch front and 17-inch rear wire-spoked wheels, whereas the street-focused Atlas GT carries 17-inch cast alloys front and rear. The styling is unusual by today’s standards but is reminiscent of Honda’s all-rounder Transalp produced from 1987-2007. If these two sell as well as that did, Norton’s Indian owner TVS Motor will surely be well pleased.
A third planned Norton engine platform is due to be unveiled later this year and will commence production in August. This is an all-new single-cylinder design powering a pair of street scramblers believed to be carrying the Norton Nomad name, which will be fully built in India.
With Gillen heading up product development, and with TVS’s deep pockets fed by profits from the 4.7 million motorcycles it built in FY2024-25 in its four factories in India and Indonesia, the future’s looking bright for Britain’s most historic sporting marque.
Aside from the technical insights, the chance to quiz Gillen in person about Norton’s evolution uncovered a very specific design strategy aimed at permitting Norton models to carve out a distinctive place in the market.
Brian, let’s talk about the Manx V4 first. Why a 1200, and not a 1000?
Torque. Everything we’re doing at Norton is about bringing the most positive experience possible to the people riding the bikes on the road. So the percentage of owners who actually take premium category supersport bikes like the Manx R to the race circuit for track days is very small. Most people are riding them on the road. This means the element that delivers them with the most exciting, the most thrilling experience on their motorcycle is not outright power but torque. Yet with all the hyper-sportsbikes today, everyone’s in a document war to say I’ve got 220hp, or 230hp or even 240hp. But that’s not what delivers customer enjoyment in real-world road riding, it’s torque – as expressed through acceleration. And the Manx V4 engine produces 130Nm of torque peaking at 9000 rpm, of which 75 per cent is already available at 5000rpm.
We did over 30,000km of riding all over Europe with capable riders of different levels of experience, from Italian National Supersport champions to normal everyday people. After analysing all the data we recorded, we discovered that on bikes with a redline of 12,000rpm upwards, they were using more than 8000rpm just one per cent of the time, so they were getting most pleasure by riding the torque curve – therefore it’s our mission at Norton to bring that torque to the people, and to deliver it lower down the rpm range. So the Norton Manx V4 engine has a phase pulse firing order, which means the way we set up the crankshaft pulses is to exemplify the torque – this for us is the most important parameter, which also delivers the best dynamics, as well as the best sound! We wanted to focus on bringing that torque lower down the rev range, and letting customers experience what the thrilling acceleration this delivers feels like.
Was this development policy established before you joined Norton, or was it something that you’ve introduced?
No, it’s something that I brought in. We completely tore up the V4 after my arrival. It was redesigned, redeveloped and re-engineered with this emphasis on torque. I tied the engineering teams together, because back then we had separate groups around the world, got everybody on one track and, above all, aligned engineering and design to have a common philosophy. When I arrived in Norton, there was not that connection.
Did you change the 72° cylinder angle of the V4 engine and why was that chosen?
So the angle of the Vee was chosen more or less to aid the chassis, via the wheelbase. One of the focuses with Norton is to have the most compact performance bike possible. A 90° Vee would be fantastic in terms of outright power and smooth balance, but in terms of packaging it’s too difficult to make a compact overall design with that format, and especially to have the longer swingarm we need to harness so much torque. It would have meant moving our swingarm pivot farther back to the point where it would have been harder to control the wheelies you inevitably get with so much torque. So, based on what we wanted to do in terms of torque output, chassis dynamics and packaging the engine, we ended up with a 72° Vee – which also doesn’t vibrate.
Is that because a 72° V4 has perfect secondary balance?
Exactly right. So with one balance shaft we can get rid of all the primary imbalance, and with the 72° cylinder Vee it takes care of the secondary balance on its own.
But are you able to drop the throttle bodies sufficiently down within the Vee to prevent a tall engine, with a high centre of gravity?
Yes, we have done that. So the Dell’Orto throttle bodies are quite close together, but compared to another competitor with a 65° V4 (Aprilia! – AC), we have more room.
After you got to Norton, was the chassis established, or did you have to rework that?
We completely re-engineered the chassis to alter the pick-up points, because the target we now had for the engine’s torque – in pursuit of acceleration – meant we needed to pay more attention to torsional rigidity. 130Nm of torque going through the chain to the rear wheel is going to stress the chassis; in fact, it’s trying to twist it. So in order to get that torque to the ground, we designed a brand new frame, with characteristics of very stiff longitudinal rigidity but quite a bit of torsional flex, to allow us to get the torque to the ground in the corners, and get the feedback into the rider’s hands in all road and track conditions.
So we needed to pay close attention to the hard points of the chassis in order to manage the torque, and then once we got the torque and the chassis lined up for acceleration, it was about how we’re going to make it handle, and then how we’re going to get the bike to stop, which means paying attention to the centre of gravity and the position of the engine, and so on. We had to fundamentally redesign the frame. Thus a single-sided swingarm which we braced accordingly, and together we have enough flex in the chassis and swingarm to give sufficient feel for riding on the street.
Suspension?
Marzocchi, and was from the beginning, because they have a technology that nobody else has right now in terms of semi-active suspension, with the linear potentiometer inside the front fork. So all of the other suspension manufacturers have a potentiometer on the rear shock, but they’re just looking at acceleration on the front axle, whereas with the Marzocchi system, we’ve actually got the same data that you have on a World Superbike, because we have the linear potentiometer built in. This means we have as near ideal wheelie control as you can get – you know me; I don’t want anti-wheelie, I want wheelie control!
Are you satisfied with the 204kg dry weight of the Manx R, or were you looking to go lighter?
I’m never going to be satisfied with it. Never. The one thing we can always do is reduce weight, and wherever we are with that when we start production, a year later we’ll be lighter. My mentality is I want torque when you turn into a corner, less weight when you’re accelerating, and less weight when you brake.
Was the Manx and Atlas styling all done inhouse at Norton?
Yes, one hundred per cent. This references what I mentioned earlier about styling and design working together.
The fact that the Manx R engine is a 1200 means that in theory it can only ever be raced in the anything-goes Isle of Man Classic TT. But Norton is a racing brand, so does the fact that you’re using the maximum 82mm bore size that’s permitted in WorldSBK mean that there might be a 1000cc version down the line?
Yes, that’s true – we could destroke it! Alan, you know how I feel about racing, and you know where my heart lies. Going racing will be in the future of Norton, that’s for sure.
Looking at the naked version, the Manx, this seems to have succeeded in that very difficult thing of making a naked bike look individual. It’s completely non-derivative.
Yes, it’s the most un-naked naked bike, with really, really unique styling, for sure.
This isn’t a deliberate reference to your recent past, but isn’t it quite similar to the MV Agusta Brutale 25 years ago? In that it’s reinvented the model sector stylistically?
That’s right – I believe it has indeed reinvented the naked sector. Walking around the EICMA show and looking at the other naked bikes, they’re all getting so massive with all the electronics and suchlike that we have on bikes today, with all the homologation hardware like exhaust valves and so on, everything is starting to completely clutter up what was once a really beautiful, minimalist concept. But the Manx feels small and stripped out when you sit on it, and even more when you ride it.
How about the difference between the two versions: is the Manx essentially a re-clothed version of the Manx R?
There’s actually a lot of similarities, but also differences. For example, they’re made up of the same five basic chassis components, but the machining on the frame for the Manx, the naked bike, is different than the Manx R.
The steering angle has been taken out one degree, and we changed the fork rake and trail, in order to have a little bit more stability with the rider sitting so upright, and because the aerodynamic centre of mass changes between the two. Other than that, the powertrain is exactly the same, with the same power and the same torque.
The Manx R will start production before the Manx, but let’s just say they’re two halves of the same whole.
Looking at the Atlas ADV parallel-twin models, how far along the road with that project were they when you arrived? As an expert offroad enduro rider, you must surely have had your own ideas about how these should be developed.
The Atlas concept was there, the idea of what we wanted to do was there, but the focus on how much we wanted to be on road, how much we wanted to be offroad, had yet to be determined. Because what you do with a street bike is completely different than what you need to do to have offroad capability, in terms of ease of movement on the bike, the contact points you have on it, and so on.
So the GT and the Atlas have the same bodywork, but in order to make the Atlas GT offroad capable, we had to take a very hard look in terms of rider ergonomics, the slimness of the bike, the narrowness, the ease of movement when you’re standing up on the ’pegs. The location of the footrest, the footrest/seat/handlebar relationship, and the contact points of your knees, where you’re going to be able to squeeze with your ankles for standing up – all that had to be established, and then of course transferred back to the GT.
Am I right in thinking that the 585cc engine is an extrapolation of the parallel-twin engine in the new BMW F 450 GS developed and built in India by TVS?
You could say it’s a derivative, but the crankcases are completely bespoke for the Norton, and so are the cylinders and crankshaft.
So the lessons that TVS was learning in designing the very first twin-cylinder motorcycle they’ve ever made for BMW…
…then went into the engine for the Atlas, yes. They had a couple of years of practice working on the BMW before they started on the Norton!
You made a huge personal commitment to leave MV Agusta after so long there, to come to Norton. Two years on, how do you feel now about having done that?
It was the right choice, for sure. It was a really hard decision to make, not only because of my personal attachment to MV as a brand, but even more than that, because of the people inside MV. I was there for 17 years and had such a strong commitment and personal involvement with all the people inside the business, especially the engineering team.
So it was a very difficult decision to make in that regard, and that’s why it took me so long to say yes to Sudarshan – the best part of two years! But speaking with him personally is what helped me make up my mind – because the commitment that I saw from him to the Norton brand, and the vision that he has for it strategically, looking forward, it all made me realise that this is something I wanted to be part of.
Being with MV was amazing but being able not only to develop a clean-sheet range of new bikes, but to relaunch a famous, historic brand to the world with the support, the power and the vision of TVS and Sudarshan behind us, was something that was really hard to say no to. And two years on, more than ever I know it was the right choice. Just wait till you ride the bikes, then you’ll see why!
NORTON’S HISTORY: RESPECTING THE PAST, RIDING INTO THE FUTURE
Founded in 1898 by James Lansdowne ‘Pa’ Norton, Norton began life as a Birmingham-based supplier of chains and fittings to the burgeoning two-wheeler industry. In 1902 Norton produced its first motorcycle, the Energette, powered by a French Clément engine. By 1908 the firm was manufacturing machines with its own single-cylinder engines. In coming years, Norton would evolve through successive ownerships, financial upheavals and design revolutions, but was always tied to the twin pillars of engineering innovation and ambition.
From its first early days, Norton’s engineering identity was shaped by experimentation and performance. Its pioneering 1921 Model 1, known as the Big Four after its categorisation in the 4hp tax bracket, and the 1927 Norton CS1, designed by Walter Moore, exemplified Norton’s engineering shift from side-valve singles to OHV and OHC designs. Racing success quickly followed. Between 1931 and 1939, Norton riders won seven out of nine Isle of Man 500cc Senior TTs, cementing its reputation for speed coupled with reliability.
World War II opened another chapter in Norton’s history. Between 1937 and 1945, Norton supplied 89,061 motorcycles to the British Army – primarily the 500cc sidevalve WD16H (WD = War Department) single, and the Big Four with driven sidecar wheel. This unprecedented upscale in production solidified Norton’s industrial scale and engineering strength. After the war, Norton’s appetite for innovation saw it develop the Featherbed chassis – a welded, twin-loop cradle structure designed by the Ulster-based McCandless brothers that was both light and strong.
This frame transformed the ageing but stalwart Manx model into an unstoppable Isle of Man TT winner in the 1950s and led Geoff Duke to win three world championships for Norton.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Dominator and Commando models brought performance parallel-twin engines to the marketplace, and chassis innovations like the Isolastic frame, which deployed rubber mountings to significantly reduce powertrain vibration affecting the rider.
This constant desire to innovate and to stay relevant within a rapidly changing motorcycle landscape led to the launch of Norton’s successful rotary-engined models in the late 1980s. The RCW588 race version took Steve Spray to victory in the 1989 British Formula One championship, Steve Hislop won the Senior TT race in 1992 on the ABUS Norton to bridge the 31-year gap since the firm’s last win in 1961, and the RCW588 also earned Ian Simpson the 1994 British Superbike championship.
Motorsport, and road racing in particular, has been a central part of the Norton story, and the constant feedback loop from track to street has fuelled Norton’s engineering philosophy of innovation. It’s a policy set to be re-established under TVS ownership.
man on a mission to revive iconic brand
In April 2020, Sudarshan Venu, Chairman/MD of India’s third largest domestic motorcycle manufacturer, TVS Motor Company, paid £16 million ($A30m) in cash to purchase Britain’s bankrupt but historic Norton Motorcycles from the liquidator. Five years on, Norton strode back on to the world stage at the 2025 EICMA Show in Milan as a born-again brand with significant potential.
However, its launch of four new Manx and Atlas models is being termed a “resurgence” by the company, rather than a “revival”. TVS has invested $A380m-plus in founding and equipping a new 7000m2 factory at Solihull, on the outskirts of Britain’s second largest city, Birmingham. This is where Norton was founded in 1898 and is close to the HQ of another resurgent Indian-owned British automotive icon – Tata-owned Jaguar Land Rover/JLR. In 2024, after a two-year chase, Venu enticed American-born Brian Gillen to join Norton. Gillen’s 200-strong R&D team has worked tirelessly to develop the models that are about to go into production.
