Vintage and Collector's Motorcycles

Page 49

1956 Norton 650 Dominator 99 $10,000 - $14,000

AGENT 99 Inspired by the popular success of Triumph’s post-war Speed Twin (refer Lot 23) and aware that other factories were working on their own versions, Norton realised it too needed a twin engine. The job was undertaken by Bert Hopwood, who had worked on the development of Edward Turner’s original Speed Twin design. In 1947, Hopwood laid out his design, which aimed to improve on the Triumph’s design

and incorporated some new ideas of his own. The result was the the Dominator 88 (500cc) which delivered what everyone expected from Norton – beautiful handling, extreme reliability and rugged good looks. In 1956, the Dominator 88’s received the benefit of some serious performance development: resizing the engine by enlarging both bore and stoke to give it a new capacity of 600cc. Its power output

went to 31bhp and the Dominator 99 was born. With a hotter camshaft and higher compression ratio, plus a new carburettor and some frame refinements, the Dominator 99 delivered suprub handling at high speed and continues to be a sought-after transitional design that offers all the best of the British Industry – an indestructible twin nested into a wildly successful framing with running gear to match.

important vintage & collectable motorcycles

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