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<\/p>\nAlthough the Norman brand disappeared from Kent in the 1960s, it still resonates with some of its fans.<\/p>\n
The motorcycle and bicycle manufacturer once employed hundreds of people in Ashford but closed more than 60 years ago.<\/p>\n
“I’m still surprised frequently by just how keen some of the motorcycle enthusiasts are about them, even after all these years,” Dover Transport Museum chair Brian Flood said.<\/p>\n
The museum recently opened an exhibition of Norman machines, which Flood said was “in effect, now the national collection”.<\/p>\n
Flood added: “It was an extremely important part of the economic infrastructure of Ashford and Kent as a whole, but there are so few people who even remember it now.”<\/p>\n
At its peak, the motorcycle works was making 12 machines a day on average, plus cycles and mopeds, with products exported internationally.<\/p>\n
“They were in fact, as I understand it, the second biggest employers in Ashford after the railway works,” Flood said.<\/p>\n
He said he put the enduring affection for Norman down to the firm’s “experimental and development work, which was undertaken at the factory”.<\/p>\n
“Norman pushed the capability of two-stroke machines as much as anybody ever did,” Flood added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Road racer Derek Minter featured in the brochures for Norman [Getty Images]<\/p>\n
The company also developed a racing pedigree in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
It loaned bikes to famed motorcycle road racer Derek Minter, who featured in their brochures, and entered competitions including the Scottish Six Day Trials.<\/p>\n
According to the Norman Cycles Club, a strong performance in the 1959 Thruxton 500 endurance race led to a \u00a310,000 boost for the firm’s order book.<\/p>\n
“Motorcycle enthusiasts do seem very fond of the Norman mark,” Flood said.<\/p>\n
The company came from humble roots in a garden shed, as brothers Charles and Fred Norman started the business shortly after World War One as a frame-making and enamelling business.<\/p>\n
“In 1921, they started making cycles and cycle frames and very quickly moved to larger premises,” Flood said.<\/p>\n
The business developed rapidly and the manufacturer built another Ashford factory in 1935, according to the Norman Cycles Club.<\/p>\n
Flood said that Norman “really started on motorcycles just before and during World War Two”, including making small motorcycles for paratroopers.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Norman opened a second factory in 1935 after growing out of its Victoria Road home [Dover Transport Museum]<\/p>\n
The Norman brothers sold the company to Tube Investments in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
“They were bought out because they were successful and were a good acquisition,” Flood said, but the Norman brand would soon disappear.<\/p>\n
The Norman Cycles Club attributes the rise of cheap cars to declining UK motorcycle sales.<\/p>\n
It led the new owners of Norman to consolidate their motorcycle assets to one factory \u2013 the Raleigh works in Nottingham.<\/p>\n
The Ashford factory closed in the early 1960s, and the Norman brand was discontinued shortly after.<\/p>\n
Dover Transport Museum began building its collection about a decade ago due to its significance in the county, which eventually required an extension to its building.<\/p>\n
Flood told the BBC that the organisation was happy to “keep that memory alive because the machines that they made are highly regarded”.<\/p>\n
“Their history is just so interesting,” he added.<\/p>\n
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