RACER TEST
P84
NORTON MANX 500 DAYTONA
BY ALAN CATHCART
PHOTOGRAPHY BY KYOICHI NAKAMURA
B
LAST LAUG
THE
rit George Cohen is globally recognized as the ultimate authority on Norton
singles, and although a qualified
doctor before taking early retirement to concentrate full time on
restoring Nortons and racing
them, he's been a hands-on engineer since a very early age. Put
it this way: By the age of 11 he had
his own lathe.
Cohen has worked down the
years on an unrivalled roster of
iconic Nortons, including reconstructing Rem Fowler's 1907 winner of the very first Isle of Man TT
race after it was destroyed in the
2003 National Motorcycle Museum (NMM) fire, then riding it in
the Centenary TT parade held in
2007 over the original St. Johns
Course. He's at pains to point out
he was first away of the 90-odd
Veteran bikes taking part, and
was never headed over the entire
15-mile lap!
As part of the Cohen collection
of historic Norton racers, he has
tracked down an array of genuine
works Daytona Nortons, proved
as such by their matching engine
and frame numbers – the entire
Manx Norton production records
have fortunately been saved for
posterity. He now owns a pair of
them, one from 1948 and another
from 1952 – but, how come?
"It was very fortuitous," says
Cohen with a satisfied smile at
the happy hand that fate has dealt
him. "I found a 1949 Daytona Nor-