Norton Motorcycles' founder Stuart Garner has appointed "prominent law firm and corporate adviser Fieldfisher to sound out potential investors". It is said that Garner is looking for GBP £5m to buy parts to fulfil a £26m order book. Previously Norton has relied on Garner’s own financial resources. BDN reports that the company’s most recent annual accounts to March 2018 show a 20% revenue increase to £6.7m, turning a loss of £201,842 in the preceding year into a £33,701 pre-tax profit.
Moto Guzzi says that their 2019 Mandello factory 'Open House' drew 30,000 visitors from all over Europe over three days in September. "The three days were filled with love for bikes, friendship, music, travel, adventure and lots of test rides". Over 20,000 'Guzzisti' were there on the Saturday, a record, to see the arrival of the "Road to Mandello" convoy, "consisting of more than two hundred riders who had left from Milan to reach the legendary red gates on Via Parodi, the symbol of Moto Guzzi".
The popular Moto Bike Expo (MBE) takes place again in Italy from January 16th - 19th. This will be the 11th year it has been staged at Verona following its acrimonious split from Padua. A combination custom and 'mainstream' show, MBE has the backing of most of the major OEs, including Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Ducati, BMW, Triumph, Royal Enfield, H-D and Indian Motorcycle.
BMW is applying for a patent on technology that will lock the bike’s transmission to make it impossible for a thief to wheel the bike away - technology that "will be far more robust and hard to defeat than its current equivalent, the steering lock".
MIPS, the Swedish brain safety technology company that has been leading the way in helmet and brain safety with over 20 years of research, has announced that founders Peter Halldin, Hans von Holst and Svein Kleiven have been awarded the 2019 Swedish Engineers Polhem Prize. The MIPS-patented Brain Protection System (BPS) is designed to reduce rotational motion transferred to the brain from angled impacts to the head.
Honda is celebrating the 40th anniversary of manufacturing in America at Marysville, OH., where production of the Elsinore CR 250 motorcycle started in 1979 with a staff of 64. Honda was the first Japanese automaker to build products in the U.S., and automobile production followed in November 1982. Honda now has five U.S. auto plants, and in 2018 with 12 major plants in the U.S. in total employing some 25,000 people and representing an investment of over $11 billion in Ohio and over $21 billion in the U.S.A. in total.
