So the ad agency was attempting to present the Nortoon as part of a genteelly hedonistic "lifestyle" that included skiing, sailing, (?) kayaking, and purportedly fine dining/kanoodling. I'd guess that Harley- Davidson execs saw the beauty of it a few years later* and went the same route, but without all the other activities, which really are kind of unthinkable in the Harley-lover context.
"The Norton vertical twin should have died and gone to legend a generation ago. In a world of perfect logic, engine designs should never maunder on for decades and finally be crushed by onrushing technology. Good ideas deserve better. Good engines should go to harvest in the fullness of their autumn; most mechanical things which struggle on simply die cold and wretched in December. Seasons do not cover England in perfect symmetry. Spring is cold and damp, and so is fall and winter. Onrushing technology there slows; the present walks in cadence with the past. And mechanical things like the Norton twin soldier on and on...through the Fifties...into the Sixties...and reach the mid-Seventies. In other places, someone would have raised the last hurrah at an earlier stage-when the original 500 twin turned to a 600, or 650, or 750, or 850. But somehow, no matter how deep Norton reaches into December, the final cheer never comes. There's only the next hurrah."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYToEQ6SuDs Moto GP Brünn 1972
So the ad agency was attempting to present the Nortoon as part of a genteelly hedonistic "lifestyle" that included skiing, sailing, (?) kayaking, and purportedly fine dining/kanoodling. I'd guess that Harley- Davidson execs saw the beauty of it a few years later* and went the same route, but without all the other activities, which really are kind of unthinkable in the Harley-lover context.
* Lightning fast in H-D terms.
Phil Schilling in 1974 "Cycle"...
"The Norton vertical twin should have died and gone to legend a generation ago. In a world of perfect logic, engine designs should never maunder on for decades and finally be crushed by onrushing technology. Good ideas deserve better. Good engines should go to harvest in the fullness of their autumn; most mechanical things which struggle on simply die cold and wretched in December.
Seasons do not cover England in perfect symmetry. Spring is cold and damp, and so is fall and winter. Onrushing technology there slows; the present walks in cadence with the past. And mechanical things like the Norton twin soldier on and on...through the Fifties...into the Sixties...and reach the mid-Seventies. In other places, someone would have raised the last hurrah at an earlier stage-when the original 500 twin turned to a 600, or 650, or 750, or 850. But somehow, no matter how deep Norton reaches into December, the final cheer never comes. There's only the next hurrah."
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