The fact that the legendary Featherbed trickled down directly from racing to the general public is a textbook example of the lexicon: “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday”. The Featherbed was indeed one of the finest racing chassis in the world at that time, truly in a class to itself. When the Featherbed finally did arrive, the humble Dominator Model 7 (1949-56) was instantly transformed into a world class road warrior. 1954 brought a much-needed 8-inch front brake. At the time, it was believed that the Featherbed was unsuitable for sidecar duty, where the old plunger frame was actually preferred. Interestingly, this stone-age frame survived the 1952 introduction of the revolutionary, trend-setting Featherbed frame (with swing arm rear suspension) on the new Dominator 88 until it was replaced on the Dominator Model 7 line in 1953.

At least it had long Roadholder telescopic forks with 7-inch brakes. And on top of that ES2 frame being expensive, it was also primitive, still relying on the archaic ‘plunger’ rear suspension instead of a modern swing arm setup. So, Norton’s legacy of twins got off to a bit of a slow start. But, Norton was in the heavy twin business & this engine would be stretched & massaged & kept in service for over a quarter century. This stuck the new Norton Dominator with a high price relative to the competition & as the result, sales were slow. However, the single cylinder bike that Norton borrowed the frame from was the ES2, which was essentially a low-volume, hand-built bike. In fact, when it came to the Dominator’s frame, Norton opted for the same trick that Edward Turner pulled when he created the Speed Twin: Put the new twin engine in the old single frame. It was designed by Bert Hopwood who had worked on the Speed Twin project while working for Triumph Motorcycles. The new engine was a non-unit (separate engine, primary & gearbox) vertical twin that generally followed convention for a British motorcycle at the time. When it was introduced in 1949, the 500cc Dominator Model 7 was a handsome enough machine. The Norton Dominator was Norton’s entry into the crowded vertical twin market, & it was intended to capitalize on the success of, & hopefully steal some sales from, the trend-setting Triumph Speed Twin.

Dating a norton dominator