Price of a Norton

[Rex]

That's was the '60s.
1970s had "shang-a-lang....shang-a-lang..."repeat ad nauseum and sung by a bunch of Jock retards in too short trooosers..

Funny thing about prices in those days though....the average Joe could still buy a house, run a car, smoke, go down the pub (remember them?) a couple of nights a week. We're just so lucky that things have improved since then.....

[johnnyboy-wonder57]

Hum!
In 1973 I worked in an Seed Merchants, Gardening  & Pet Supplies for the Summer, Mon to Sat 9-6pm,  half day Wed 9-1pm my wage was single figures maybe £7 or £8 a week, I used to buy an LP around £3.25 or maybe a couple of singles 50-60p?, I used to put £1-2  a week away towards my first motorbike, played snooker @ the Church club.  In 1975 in the Clubs a pint of mild was 11p, bitter 13p & Lager if they had it, 17p. When I got my D10 my Dad helped me restore it & my insurance was with Federated, remember when you could go into a premises & sort it out & not have to surf the Internet & do all the work yourself. A gallon of petrol was 70 odd p around this time, in fact I checked its true 73p per gallon, still working in the shop as a Saturday boy, I got £3.50, but it was packed with crumpet & well worth the experience, but I was Shy @ the time!

Fuel price hikes
 OPEC 1973;
Khomeini, Iran turns Fundamental 1979; First ever Islamic Republic;
2001 International terrorism threat;
2011Competition: China's demand for oil & will pay higher prices, outbid other states price remains high;

Incidentally, fuel prices were astronomical it took me most of the 2/3rds of the morning in 1975  to earn a gallon of juice!

BBC Breakfast calculated that the price of a litre of petrol would have been 85p in 1975 - 2p more than it is was in 04/06/2004 see article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3776913.stm

But the best article I have found recently was in 1960 Motorcycle Mechanics, Scooters @ Three Wheelers is was an 11 year old  1949 Vincent Rapide with side-car in a Dealers  for £100, (in an article about what you could buy for £100 quid, new, Bantam anyone)!

Hindsight eh!


Cheers

John

JBW

[statik]

It's not easy to compare prices between era's because values were so different and there are too many variables.  Men had to go to the pub a couple of times a week, now there isn't many pubs and most people wouldn't go in one anyway.  Kids wore whatever clothes were about, just imagine what would happen if you told a boy now to wear something his brother has grown out of.  There wasn't £120.00 trainers, we had two shilling plimsoles. 

By the way my first Bantam was £10 and cost £4 to insure and the gear leaver return spring was broke which meant splitting the whole engine in two halves to replace it.  Like everyone else I soon got the hang of clicking it back in place myself.  Did I mention road tax, never bothered. 

If I remember correctly we used to fix things and they carried on working again, we called it maintenance.  Not done that for a while. 

[yosemite]

[
If I remember correctly we used to fix things and they carried on working again, we called it maintenance.  Not done that for a while.
[/quote]
 please please tell me what you ride cos I want something british you dont have to maintain

[yebbut]

please please tell me what you ride cos I want something british you dont have to maintain

you mean you dont have to maintain Japanese or German bikes?

course not you pay someone  else to do it.

I have found over the last 50 years of riding mostly old british singles and even Triumphs that the so called unreliability of them ishas always been down to inept  people who fantasise they are  capable mechanics.

How do you tink so many people traversed to world back then on the things if they were so in need of "maintenace"  I like being able to fix a puncture by the side of the road in less time than it takes for a recovery truck to reach me thnks.

Since its all over the net everywhere else
watch this

http://www.go-faster.com/SS100.html

[statik]

The reason I like British bikes is because they can be maintained.  My older Japaneese bikes can also be maintained.  I think that's a good thing.  If the job is done with care they stay fixed. 

I am a maintenance engineer at work.  The difference is that maintenance of new equipment involves throwing away parts and fitting new ones.  There is no such thing as a repair anymore. 

After all maintenance is just a repair before it's actually needed.  You don't wait for the brake shoes to wear down to the metal, you fix the problem before it gets that far. 

I travelled Europe on British and Japaneese bike for most of my holidays without much trouble. 

[johnnyboy-wonder57]

Statik,
Monetary values have been adjusted to take in as many variables as you can to equate amounts & 40 year time span in between;
Fantastic link cheers yebbut;
The problem with many British machines was attention to detail & this often let them down time & time again, what were essentially fairly good products in a solid type of way; my father in his apprenticeship was working on "Plant" machines bought in 1914-1918 & he served his time from1948-1953.  Management often used up component parts that were available @ that time,  rather than replace them with updates as and when needed to keep competitive & ahead of the game. Norton did this with frames and BSA did this over the Sunbeam S7 worm drive, where Germany & Japan scored was rebuilt plant & more modern production systems, famously JIT has gone "titsup" 'cos no one seems to carry spares any more. Some time later attention to detail began to pay off, though sometimes their products lacked in other areas than, what we had right.  German bikes lacked flair & Japanese bikes alloy casting & frame strength, wasn't particularly a strong point of manufactured products with bikes, ( early on @ least)!   
The folding kick-start on my 1980s Honda was immeasurably better that the folding kick-start on my 1970s BSA.

We had a head start, in the 1950s,  but we as manufacturers let it slip & time & time again, returns to shareholders killed what could have been  respectable industries through lack of investment, insight and the will to survive & be honourable to the workforce @ least by trying to save peoples jobs and futures.

That's why often many small specialist builders, Rickman et al, did things better & hybrid specials were born like the Triton e.t.c. Not sure what the answer was design wise for the industry, but they could have easily put in a modified \Imp engine into a featherbed frame  from Rootes or the Coventry Climax group & had a four-cylinder machine until they got their  act together.
Sadly with hindsight if viewed dispassionately the A75 & later T160s proposed by the BSA/Triumph group would have had a better chance of survival if  Smallheath had survived, rather than the ageing Bonneville @ the Co-operative @ Meriden.

Both sub-companies should have been given separate chances, but then as with what happened @ Redditch with royal Enfield, speculators were baying @ the door or politicians and officials to get their hands on land for re-developments & monies from these deals found itself in the hands of the few rather than the hands of many when they were industrial premises;  the same happened to Leyland Motors & the same happened @ Longbridge, because the people we vote in to protect our interests, do not do it & I am sorry to say it just the same today and it will probably be the same tomorrow ad infinitum!

On a brighter note there is a new industry, but as yet its impacts for possible employment & component manufacture within the UK are limited as time has moved on with new-production systems & much of our industrial infrastructure disappeared some years ago, but it is better then sod all suppose, if model range is limited to larger more powerful machinge, whereas the future may lie in  frugal 4 strokes singles & then a frugal V- twin, if you look @ modern machines even with complex control systems their mpg is awful, also some modern 2011, 250s are less powerful than the old Starfire!

Enough for now, I have gone & depressed myself!  Better go & do the shopping & get a lottery ticket.


Cheers


JBW


 

[Bomber]

I agree with most of what you say John, however all the British bikes I have owned have passed through many hands before finding their way into my covertous grip and 99% of the problems I have had with them were the ones created by the Gonks listed on their log books. I'm affraid most working class home maintenance and repairs (including mine at the time) were bodges just to simply keep the bike on the road and get to work the rest of the week.

Now we want the bike for different reasons and our maintenance and repairs are by the book (unless you are adventurous and make improvements to the original design).

Frank

[johnnyboy-wonder57]

Yes, I admit as a teenager, (its a steep learning curve), I did inflict some damage on both my BSA's & not always by falling off them, but I also improved some things too, better headlight H4, brighter "Stanley" tail bulb, uprated switchgear, re-wiring, allen bolts, milled down, (by uncle)  A50 engine sprocket with more teeth to cruise easier on motorways, but there was not much you could do, reverse the cam plate for 1 up & 3 down, faster gear changes,  Hammerite on cycle parts, gaskets from CCM, megaphone silencer, sounded like the "End of the World" when on full throttle!  Although this improvement didn't always go down well the neighbours & local Constabulary, my Dad used to hear me on a Summers eve' coming down the box when negotiating the round-a-bout from the M61 to the A6, he was half a mile away and knew the distinctive noise of the engine!

At the time you innocently do not realise what fun you were having compared to the totalitarian conditions we ride into today, as the country descends into an abyss, full of uptight, target setting  arse-holes who make policy & install CCTV everywhere, when probably the most fun they ever experienced was when the passed "wind" on their fifth birthday, the word "Free Country" seems to stick in my throat!

As the Gaul Brennus declared to the Romans "vie victus!, woe to the defeated, @ the moment the plutocrats & bureaucrats seem to have it all their way, who's defending motorcyclists rights? The BMF, MAG its a sorry state of affairs, the next step will be it will be illegal to do your home maintenance, you'll see, but on this I hope I am not right.


Cheers


JBW

[rogerwilko]

They can't wait for us to all die off.Next generation couldn't care less!

[RichP]

   the next step will be it will be illegal to do your home maintenance, you'll see, but on this I hope I am not right JBW

..I wish it was then the missus would have to phone someone up and I could spend more time in the workshop..

I don't remember Commando prices in the early seventies but by the end they were pretty cheap for a big bike, about twice the price of a new 250cc learner bike. They never became really cheap after that, maybe £500 for a runner but they were soon up to £1000 or so for a decent one and have never come down since although they remain moderately priced for their capabilities (still a money pit though).

One of the things that attracted me to British motorcycles in the 1970s was that you had to be self reliant and prepared to fix them. I still rather despise motorcyclists who have never had their engines apart and, by extension, the Japanese factories for making the hobby so damned accessible.

[Rex]

At the time you innocently do not realise what fun you were having compared to the totalitarian conditions we ride into today, as the country descends into an abyss, full of uptight, target setting  arse-holes who make policy & install CCTV everywhere,

So JBW, Mail or Express reader?

"Totalitarian conditions" indeed. Many in the World would happily swap to be in conditions as totalitarian as ours, (unless the dictionary definition has altered in some way?)

[yebbut]

So JBW, Mail or Express reader?

Such a statement negates any argument you are about to make in the same way as accusing you of being a Guardian reader does.

If you are implying that readers of those organs are right ring then I suggest you have a look at

Stormfront UK

Jew watch.


Now thats right wing, and for what its worth rather more informative than the Dail Mail.

Anyway  isn't this this is a bike site

[R]

<snip> I still rather despise motorcyclists who have never had their engines apart and, by extension, the Japanese factories for making the hobby so damned accessible.

That is actually a very interesting comment ? Once-upon-a-time, almost every enthusiast, by the very definition of the word, knew exactly what was in his/her engine. 

OK, so not everyone even then was an 'enthusiast' then. Or Dealers workshops would have been out of business....

[R]

<snip>
Anyway  isn't this this is a bike site

Indeed. But owning an old bike is becoming a luxury, and it seems lawmakers are determined to make it more difficult. Worth keeping an eye on, and we'd be remiss in not informing / commenting on developments on this front ?

Even that bastion of something, the BBC, is today reporting that 75% of wealth is in the hands of 25% of the population (not sure where those numbers apply to) as though that was something that needs changing...