1934 Works bike ...

 

-SG- I recently came across Alain Daigne's 2012 French publication 'Manxman'  - a collection of seventy photos of racing Nortons from 1900 to 1970. Two of the shots are of the 1934 works bike - photographed like many others over the years against a sheet held up in front of the office door.  Grateful to Richard for what he has to say about it: 

"The bike in the pictures is the 1934 works racer as used by Jimmy Guthrie to do the 1934 TT double. This was the year that the works engines were completely up-dated using full magnesium castings and bronze skull/ aluminium cylinder heads and aluminium barrels. The crankcases used the front top bolt to attach the engine to the frame for the first time, and the front down tube was fitted with 2 separate mounting lugs. The lower lug was fitted with the usual triangular engine plates and the higher lug had separate straight plates to the top crankcase bolt. The following year, 1935, the crankcases were re-designed and used the single set of front engine plates that were subsequently used on all racing spec. Inters and post-war garden gate Manx. This meant the 1935 frame lost the lower lug, although the 1934 double lug frames were still used with the later engines in some events. The other firsts for 1934 were aluminium petrol and oil tanks, and the Norton designed gearbox which were put into all the range for 1935. The exhaust system is a straight-through pipe but a megaphone was used for the 1934 TT and most other major events."