Norton-Villiers-Triumph

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Norton-Villiers-Triumph was a British motorcycle manufacturer formed in 1973 by the British Government to continue the UK motorcycling industry provided that it compete with the Japanese. It merged with financially troubled Norton-Villiers, the remains of Associated Motorcycles, which had gone bust in 1966, a subsidiary of British engineering conglomerate Manganese Bronze. Like most Government interventions into British industry, the company eventually failed.

Norton-Villiers-Triumph (NVT) inherited four motorcycle factories: Small Heath which was the former BSA plant; Andover and Wolverhampton which were the plants of Norton; and Meriden which manufactured Triumph. Meriden had the worst productivity of the three.

In July 1975, the government refused to renew the company’s export credits. The company went into receivership. The Meriden site survived closure on a plan to exploit the Triumph Bonneville by a worker co-operative with a substantial Government subsidy; the Norton Wankel project was sold off by the receivers into private hands, with slow selling and under developed rotary engined motorcycles appearing under the Norton name for the next 15 year; while Wolverhampton having no viable products to produced was reduced to a workers sit-in and showing of a named Norton 76 a 500cc twin based on the 'Wulf' concept. After Wolverhampton closed, the workers took the former Tong Castle gates and erected them at the former Marston site.

NVT was iquidated in 1978. Even though Norton-Villiers-Triumph is no more, motorcycles bearing the Triumph name are still being made.