Nortons

[nedj]

Is anybody aware , if the Norton Rotary Engine was ever imported into NZ?
I have a bit of a facination with the rotary motor and have always thought its a a very logical motor to have in a motorcycle. To date I am unaware of any other manufacturer ever making one. Any body know of any other makes to do so?

[pete376403]

Rob Nesbitt at Classic cycles in Upper Hutt is yer man for these. I think he did a course at the factory on them.
And I have seen a Norton Commander rotary at a Cold Kiwi, so ther's at least one about

[pete376403]

And of course there was the Suzuki RE-5 rotary.

[RiderInBlack]

To date I am unaware of any other manufacturer ever making one. Any body know of any other makes to do so?

There's a guy in the Jap Vintage MC that rides a rotary Suzuki (cann't remember what it was call). He reckconed that it had little power in low revs and didn't do too well in it's top end, leaving him a very small "usiable" rev range.

[nedj]

Just looked up the Suzuki RE-5 rotary on the net and did a quick read of the story. Seems as though it was a dismal failure. There doesnt seem to be any suggestions on what its top speed was.
Thanks

[pete376403]

If you ever come down this way there is a cafe with an attached bike museum at Waitarere beach turnoff. They have an RE-5 in there.
Wouldn't call it a dismal failure, just that conventional technology, eg the GS750 four stroke, overtook the advantage that the rotary was supposed to offer. Just like later turbos, which were supposed to be big power in small packages, but conventional motors soon equalled or beat the turbo advantage.
Also the rotary was an environmentally dirty motor. If it couldn't sell in California, they weren't going to bother trying anywhere else.

[Kickaha]

I have a photo of a Norton rotary racing at one of the Sound of Thunder meetings,this was a year or two after the bikes were first released and were only meant to be available for the UK police.

There's at least a couple of RE-5 rotaries getting around Christchurch,don't see them very often though.

[Jackrat]

There was a German Co' that made rotarys during the early sixtys.
I can't remember their name but I have seen several photo's of them.
I also saw a Norton rotary at Pukekohe about ten years ago.
Was probably the one already mentioned as he said it was the only one in the country.

PS. The German rotary was called Thor.

[LB]

from memory the RE-5 was very very thirsty too.

They came out with two different instrument clusters - the first batch had instruments sort of like a cylinder that the sort of see-through-ish cover rolled up (when you turned the key I guess?) then the second batch had conventional round speedo and tacho.

[nedj]

I did a search on yahoo for the Suzuki and as you said, its a very weired looking console. dont Know what Suzuki were thinking.
Thirsty the rotary may be, but from a vibrational, balance point of view it makes sense. Though I have no idea if it suffered the seals drama that the Rotary cars did.

[Kickaha]

There was a German Co' that made rotarys during the early sixtys.
I can't remember their name but I have seen several photo's of them.
I also saw a Norton rotary at Pukekohe about ten years ago.
Was probably the one already mentioned as he said it was the only one in the country.

PS. The German rotary was called Thor.

Was it,is that the model name? I thought it was made by DKW.

Just did a search there's a lot more of them than I realised.


http://www.monito.com/wankel/motorcycles.html

[merv]

OK here's the RE5 at the Bike Shed museum - see pics attached.

The first RE5 like this one had the cylindrical instrument panel and the cylindrical rear tail light assembly - all part of the rotary theme. The later ones looked more conventional. It was a single rotor engine and while smooth didn't really make enough power nor was it economical enough to replace the GT750 2 stroke. The oil crisis of the mid 70s saw the end of the move towards rotaries with Mazda scaling down their cars too with only the RX7 and successors surviving. The cars drank gas like V8s back then and the bike was probably similar to the 2 strokes which also lost ground to the 4 strokes. So Suzuki finally went that way introducing the GS750.

A lot of it was corporate pride. Honda who were known for their 4 strokes in the 60s and 70s were reluctant to build 2 strokes and likewise Suzuki was one of the kings of 2 strokes and were reluctant to change to 4 strokes so they tried the rotary instead.

The other feature of the RE5 you might be interested in is the air cooled exhaust pipes - you can see the little grilled intake on the front corner of the pipe below the radiator in the front on pic - the damn things generated immense heat in the pipes and that was Suzukis response to that problem.

I saw the first one of these bikes introduced to NZ when Colemans did demo laps with it at one of th Marlboro series rounds at Wanganui.

Enjoy the pics and if you haven't been to the museum yet get yourself along there.

[What?]

Only the first model RE-5 had the round instrument roll thingy. The next model had instruments similar to, if not same as, GT750.

A Dutch firm called Van Veen also made a rotary. Like the Suzuki, it was over-weight and under-powered, not to mention thirsty (but not as bad as the H2 Kwak).

And Yep, the RE-5 has seal problems.

[James Deuce]

NSU was the German company that produced a rotary powered sedan. They made a car called the Ro-80 that Audi nicked the styling for their first large cars from. Funnily enough it was damned unreliable, and lot of the Ro-80s in NZ ended up with Mazda 12A rotary engines when NSU unit failed.

The Norton rotary is still in use mainly in drone aircraft, which is what it was designed for originally.

[Jackrat]

Was it,is that the model name? I thought it was made by DKW.

Just did a search there's a lot more of them than I realised.


http://www.monito.com/wankel/motorcycles.html

I think it may be the model name,there is another one from the same crowd called a Hercules.They look a little like a jet engine mounted long ways in the frame.