HIGH FIDELITY 1953 Manx Norton Cafe Racer Special

Some bikes catch the eye; this Norton’s immediately obvious charms attracted a lot of interest at last year’s Scottish Motorcycle Show. Pete’s flamboyant 1976 Suzuki GT500 was displayed alongside the Norton on the Cafe Racer stand at Ingliston and featured in our show report. The stand had a nice laid-back setting, with a coffee table, deckchairs and an interesting array of machinery on display around the edges. Lots of folk dropped by for a chat and Pete spent quite some time just sitting in the deckchair soaking up the atmosphere. He found his gaze constantly drawn to this stunning 1953 Manx Norton Cafe Racer Special, which had clearly been built to a very high standard with no expense spared.

Pete started motorcycling in 1976, growing up with Japanese bikes, mostly Hondas, starting with an SS50 (with a C90 engine fitted, for a bit more oomph!), CB200, CB400/4, CB750, CB900 then onto R1s, Ducati 996, BMWs, etc. He had never really been attracted to earlier British bikes as they seemed, to him, to offer little