Norton Domiracer

The Norton Domiracer is a rare motorcycle, of which, very few were ever made. At first glance, it would appear to be a fairly standard Dominator motor with some performance parts added for racing. But, in reality, it's a very different motor altogether. This particular bike being very unique in that the Domiracer was mainly known to be mounted in the newly developed Lowboy frame. It was supposed to be the evolutionary racing machine to replace the Manx Norton. Intended to be a less expensive machine to manufacture, while the parallel twin Dominator had been in development / production for roughly 12 years. So as a foundation, it was surely far enough along to be highly tuned as a race bike. Strangely though, the Dominator was a pushrod motor versus the DOHC Manx. A somewhat step backwards for the highly tuned Manx Norton.

I came across this photo thru a good friend, and strangely, I had simply never seen it before. It's a 1962 full spec Manx Norton chassis, with a genuine Domiracer motor. Opinions seem to vary as to how many real Domiracer motors were ever made. Some quote the number to simply be 1 example, but I've heard that up to 5 may have originally existed. You can see all the standard Manx features for 1962, including the 4 leading shoe front brake, conical rear hub, dropped top yoke, exposed spring front suspension, Smiths ATRC tachometer, central oil tank and Works petrol tank.

You can also very clearly see the eccentric rocker spindles in the photo, with oil banjos that go directly into the spindle, to lubricate the valve gear. Also noticeable is the Lucas 3MTT magneto, and right & left handed Amal GP carbs, with the 2" inlet tract. The oil tank hangs from brackets in the frame, and instead of having an oil tank table mounted to the engine plates, it had an angled bracket affixed to the cross tube, with a simple foam pad, and rubber bands that held the tank back against the bracket. And while this machine certainly resembles the production Dominator of the era, I can see only a few features which were shared with the production line. Insignificant things such as the timing cover and valve covers look to be standard, while other things such as the engine brackets are clearly different.

As an update to this original post, I wanted to show the other side of this bike. I stumbled across this photo, and I think it helps t complete the story to see the other side of the bike.

In this photo, you can see some other interesting features, such as the camshaft breather coming out of the side of the crankcase rather than the rear. This was a feature that was later added as standard to all Atlas machines. Also can be seen, is a Manx primary chain oiler, special bracket around the top tube of the frame to hold the large Amal round remote float and also an interesting cut out to the brake plate on the rear wheel.

It's not too often that I come across such photos and have never seen them before, so I'll admit that I've looked fondly at the photos, and tried to imagine what happened to the bike. Certainly, I have no idea, but hopefully it's sitting safely tucked away somewhere, and might see the light of day again soon.

UPDATE:

I wanted to make a revision to what I wrote above. I was corrected by a good friend that knows more about the Domiracer than I do. I mis-spoke about the camshaft breather being like the one used on the Atlas. The banjo fitting in this motor, is actually a high pressure oil feed that lubricates the needle roller bearings in the camshaft. I think it's important to call out this information and correct. My apologies if anyone was misled.

If anyone has information that corrects anything that I post here, please leave a comment or email me. I'm always open minded to make corrections and ensure that the information being shared online is accurate and correct. Thank you to Benjamin for the correcting my error.