According to the Leicester Mercury, hundreds of youngsters are to be trained to build motorcycles in the grounds of a historic country house for Norton Motorcycles. The company is looking to recruit 40 apprentices by September, when the three-year course will begin. It eventually plans to take in 100 trainees a year.
The creation of the British Motorcycle Manufacturing Academy is part of Norton owner Stuart Garner’s dream of producing a motorcycle that is totally British made. At the moment, 83 per cent of parts for his bikes are made in England. “We want to make a 100 per cent British-made motorcycle,” he said. “But this is hard to do because there’s no way of buying some of the parts in the UK. We don’t have any suspension or brake manufacturing here. We have to get them from the Far East.
