Can anyone explain Norton to me?

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mangocrazy
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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#16 Post by mangocrazy » Thu Jan 30, 2020 7:48 pm

And I agree with all the subsequent steps, as well. To be honest it was a textbook example of how not to do it. A few other observations:

Taking money off punters before the bikes were built.
Jumping in at the deep end with mega-priced luxury models without demonstrating prior ability as a motorcycle manufacturer.
Running a PR machine in overdrive with little or no tangible product to demonstrate.
Making fanciful and exaggerated claims about performance.
Going racing as a means to drum up publicity, when everyone knows it's a sure fire way to haemorrhage cash.
Repeated and worrying reliabilty problems on the few bikes that did actually make it into punter's hands.

If he was serious about building a long-term business, Mr Garner should have stuck to producing updated versions of the old classics (Dominator, Commando) with all the reliability problems ironed out. Get that production line under way and producing a reliable revenue stream before cautiously branching out into exotica. And don't even entertain the idea of going racing.

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#17 Post by mangocrazy » Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:49 pm

And now the full story is starting to come out...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... _clipboard

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#18 Post by BikerGran » Thu Jan 30, 2020 10:09 pm

"Without dialogue Metro Bank appointed BDO administrators yesterday"

And we can all see why!
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#19 Post by Gio » Thu Feb 06, 2020 12:27 pm

mangocrazy wrote:
Thu Jan 30, 2020 11:26 am
Step 1. Don't have a crook as your CEO...
I'd point the finger at the accountant, I expect he (Stuart Garner) is just naive.
I hate it when people ask if you have a bathroom, I want to say "No we pee in the garden"

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#20 Post by mangocrazy » Thu Feb 06, 2020 4:57 pm

By all accounts he's been naively raiding the pension account, naively getting customers to pay full price for bikes in advance and not delivering them and naively forgetting to pay suppliers. And naively getting handouts from the Government/taxpayer and naively not paying tax.

I guess it all depends what your definition of naive is...

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#21 Post by fatboy » Fri Feb 07, 2020 7:47 pm

Naive, alternative definition
Bully, crook, con man, egotistical sociopath
Cleverly disguised as an adult !

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Re: Can anyone explain Norton to me?

#22 Post by mangocrazy » Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:28 pm

No punches pulled here. If anyone is in doubt about Garner's intentions when reviving Norton, this should dispel them:

https://www.superbike.co.uk/article/nor ... -the-start

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