Atlas Cards Plus

1936 NSU 350 SSR Works Racer - Heiner Fleischmann

German champion
Before the appearance of the new NSU 350 supercharged twin, the famed Neckarsulm factory successfully raced single-over-head cam singles between 1930 and 1938.

Like a Norton
The first of these, designed by Briton William Walter Moore, recruited from Norton in 1929, were similar to the Norton CS1 he had created in 1927. Available in 500 and 600cc capacities, the new NSUs soon became known as “Bullus” after the British rider Tom Bullus, signed by NSU at the same time as Moore.

Successful Riders
Bullus was the most successful rider of the NSU works team, which also included Giggenbach, Ruttchen and Ulmen in 1930, then the Viennese Rudi Runtsch and the German Hans Soenius in 1931. In 1933, NSU developed a 350 version of the Bullus, which was only available to works riders for its first two seasons and was then sold as a read more…

Tweet This 

1934 NSU 500 OSL

German through and through
The little world of the motorcycle created its own European community long before the politicians had the same idea. So it was that NSU, a pioneer of the German industry, achieved fame on the racing circuits in 1930 with a single overhead camshaft engine developed by Walter Moore, the English engineer who had just created the famous Inter models for Norton – and their German successors bore a strong family resemblance. In 1933, NSU profited from the experience gained from competition by introducing the OSL 250, 350, 500 and 600cc which, apart from their overhead-valve heads, were replicas of the overhead cam racers.

Built to Last
German-built quality is legendary: all the components of the OSL were designed for long service without problems. The chain was protected by read more…

Tweet This 

1929 NSU 500 SS BuIlus

British at heart
In 1929, NSU, Germany’s biggest and oldest motorcycle manufacturer, had lost its sporty reputation and was seeking a new engine to reestablish its image,

British Supremacy
British motorcycles were supreme in racing and the British engineers the most highly regarded. NSU approached Walter Moore, who had just created the first 500cc “cammy” Norton engine, with which Alec Bennett had won the 1927 Senior Tourist Trophy.

Moore Power
In 1928, the Norton CS1 (”Camshaft Senior”) design was marketed in 350cc form for privateers as the CJ1 (”Camshaft Junior”). But the Sunbeam victories in the read more…

Tweet This 

1954 Nougier 250 Twin

The work of a real-life wizard
Whoever would believe that some of the finest racing motorcycles ever built in France were constructed by a man without the least mechanical training, who was always strapped for cash and whose equipment was totally out of date? Nevertheless, that was the truth about Jean Nougier, “the wizard of Saint-Andiol,” among whose finest creations is the 250 Nougier twin-cylinder of 1954.

Scratch-Built 500
In 1953, aided by a rider and metal-founder from Grenoble named Collignon and read more…

Tweet This 

1953 Nougier 500 Grand Prix

The wizard of Provence
Except in the early years of this century, French motorcycle manufacturers have made little impression on the international racing scene. Nevertheless, that hasn’t prevented the country’s many small workshops from continuing to build grand prix racers.

Hand-Built Superbike
Among the most outstanding were the bikes produced by the Nougier brothers at St. Andiol, near Avignon in Provence. Nougiers were built from stem to stern by read more…

Tweet This 

1946 Nougier 250 Tournevis

Built by hand to beat the best
Jean Nougier was a brilliant craftsman mechanic who – from 1937 to his last French motorcycling championship in 1972 either starting with proprietary components or working from the raw metal, hand-built the racing motorcycles that were sadly lacking from the output of the French manufacturers. Designed in 1939 and 1940, the Tournevis (”Screwdriver”) was highly successful. Recalled Nougier: “Ridden by my brother Henri or by de Shaad, it won at least 40 races, including the 1946 Avignon Grand Prix. The following year, it finished second at Avignon behind the famous works Guzzi ridden by Fergus Anderson.”

All His Own Work
Entirely hand-built, the engine was a superb double overhead camshaft unit topped read more…

Tweet This 

1976 Norton Wasp MX Sidecar

Three-wheeled winners
There’s no logical explanation why so many world-class sidecar riders have been Swiss, such as racing champions Hans Haldemann, Florian Camathias, Fritz Scheidegger and Rolf Biland. And when a European motocross championship was inaugurated in the 1970s, Robert Grogg and his passenger Andreas Graber proved unbeatable.

Four Times a Winner
Over the six-year period from 1974 to 1979, Grogg won the read more…

Tweet This 

1970 Norton Rickman Commando Metisse

The frame game
Don and Derek Rickman initially became famous as motocross riders. After debuting on British production bikes, these technically minded men realized that the motocross bikes on the market left much to be desired. They were heavy, difficult to maneuver, and their power curve was ill-suited to the use to which they were to be put. It was time for the brothers to build their own motorcycles.

Breaking the Mold
The 500cc category was then dominated by big singles from read more…

Tweet This 

1993 Norton John Player Replica

Reliving a victory
Few race-replicas have been more faithful to the original than this version of the John Player Norton Commando. It won the 500- mile production event at Thruxton, England, in 1973. That was because the roadster’s creator, Norman White, had also built the original race bike – and ridden it to victory.

Mechanic and Rider
In 1973, White was Norton’s mechanic and development rider, and he competed at Thruxton because factory star Peter Williams was racing elsewhere. Twenty years later, White – now with his own Norton tuning business based at read more…

Tweet This 

1992 Norton Interplus

Sports bike with a secret
Aggressively styled, brightly colored and deceptively fast, the Norton Interplus hid a guilty secret. The limited edition sports machine was based on the Interpol II – the air-cooled rotary that Norton produced for’ police forces throughout Britain in the 1980s.

Gamekeeper Turned Poacher
The Interplus was the creation of two motorcycling businessmen, who bought a series of police Nortons and turned them from read more…

Tweet This 

1992 Norton Rotary F1 Sport

Revival and domination
In the late 1970s, the famed Norton firm finally closed its doors. Norton had been started by James Lansdowne Norton in Birmingham in 1901. It soldiered on through good and bad times to create some of the quintessential cycles that have served to define what a motorcycle should be. From Norton has come the International, Manx, Dominator and, last but hardly least, the phenomenal Commando. It was a sad day when read more…

Tweet This 

1992 Norton F2

Fighting for survival
Britain’s once-great Norton firm endured a long struggle for survival throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s as a succession of owners failed to provide the investment needed. One of Norton’s more promising bikes was the F2, which appeared in prototype form in 1992.

Norton’s Dual Aims
The Norton management’s aim in revealing the prototype F2 in late 1992 was to interest the public in a sportster that would eventually read more…

Tweet This 

1992 Norton Commander

From police to public
Norton spent over a decade refining its rotary engine, and eventually had some success in selling bikes to the British police force. Several years later, in 1989, a modified version of the police bike,’ called the Commander, was put on sale to the public.

Designed for Touring
The Commander was closely related to the police machine, especially its water-cooled, twin-chamber rotary engine, which had an identical swept volume of read more…

Tweet This 

1992 Norton 500 Manx

Reviving a legend
Norton’s 500cc Manx 30M was one of the most famous racing bikes ever built, a legendary machine with innumerable GP victories. Its story took another remarkable turn in 1992 when, after a gap of 30 years, the Manx entered production once again.

All New Components
Its creator was Bernie Allen, a leading English classic-bike restorer and former racer. Such was the growth in popularity of classic racing during the 1980s that firms began read more…

Tweet This