Norton Jubilee

The Norton Jubilee was a small motorcycle made from 1958 to 1966, named for Norton's Diamond Jubilee of sixty years of manufacture. At 249 cc it had the smallest engine Norton ever made and was the first Norton with a unit-construction engine and gearbox, a new design by Bert Hopwood. It was a break with Norton tradition, built to suit the 1960 UK law that limited learner riders to machines under 250 cc, and it produced 16 bhp for a top speed of 75 mph. The engine, with an unusual crank whose central flywheel was narrow but large in diameter, first gained a name for oil leaks and unreliability, which a change to nodular iron and a better gearbox bush cured. The frame, forks, brakes and wheels came from AMC stablemate Francis-Barnett, and about 5,000 were built, first at Bracebridge Street and from 1963 at Woolwich.