Friday bike

I'd posted this old advert for the Norman B4 Sport on Facebook with the caption 'It's good to feel wanted' as a joke.

The B4 Sport was a fairly ordinary bike fitted with a Villers 250cc two stroke twin engine, and its only real claim to fame was that the fuel tank was designed in Italy giving it a more stylish look than contemporary rivals. It was only built for one year, 1961, so is now very rare.

I was offered one of these about 30 years ago by the brother of a friend of a friend, solely because of the name on the tank. I think he wanted £40 for it in running condition, and although I wasn't looking for a bike at the time and had no interest in British bikes, I did seriously think about it. However, he was offered a lot more for it by someone wanting to transfer the registration number, so sold it to him instead. This probably meant that after the number transfer was complete, the bike was probably dumped!

More reading: here and here.