32 :OLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA
Dean Hogarth is a committed Norton man –
he has owned and restored more than 30 over
the years. He is also a veteran motorcycle racer
and more lately a gun speedway competitor. His
motorcycle racing career came to an end following
the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island in 1957,
but prior to that he had enjoyed a successful career
on solos and as a passenger to noted South
Australian sidecar racers Gordon Benny and Laurie
Wilson. Benny’s mount was a Vincent Black
Lightning that he purchased from Singapore and
Hogarth occasionally rode it in solo form. Dean lists
the highlight of his motorcycling career as finishing
third to World Champion Geoff Duke at Gawler
Airfield in 1955. On that occasion he was aboard his
self-tuned and highly modified Norton International.
Switching to speedcars, Dean became a leading
light at Adelaide’s fondly remembered Rowley Park,
where he raced a variety of cars including his well
known ‘Old Smokey’ and held lap and race records
on several occasions. His speedway career came to
an end when he was banned from holding a licence
after a heated exchange with a somewhat zealous
track official.
Today, at 86 years of age, Dean is scaling back his
collection which now numbers around ten machines.
However his shed, which is a favourite calling point
for motorcycle groups passing through Murray Bridge,
south of Adelaide, still contains some gems, including
a beautiful pre-war Manx Norton raced very success-
fully by pre-war South Australian star Clem Foster, a
Norton Big 4 with Dusting sidecar, a Model 7 Norton
twin, and a really rare one, a 1963 Norton Electra.
“Electra”, I hear you ask? Yes indeed, a 400cc
parallel twin that was produced from 1963 to 1966.
The Electra had its origins in the 250cc Jubilee, intro-
duced in 1958, so let’s start there. Norton felt that its
60th anniversary of motorcycle production was a
milestone worth celebrating, and the Jubilee was the
result; a design that had input from Bert Hopwood,
Doug Hele and chief designer William Pitcher.
The new 250 differed markedly from any previous
Norton twin, being of unit construction, but with a
conventional one-piece nodular iron 360-degree
crankshaft and a very oversquare bore and stroke of
60mm x 44mm. The crankcases were vertically split
with separate barrels and heads. Originally, the
Jubilee was to have a single die-casting for each
head and barrel as a single unit, eliminating the
always touchy head gasket. However in the
final wash-up, this was decreed an unwar-
ranted expense and the heads and barrels were
cast separately. With such a wide bore, the
valves could sit at a fairly narrow angle of 42º,
giving a modern combustion chamber design, with
a single carburettor feeding the cylinders via a forked
manifold. The twin camshafts, located fore and aft of
the cylinders were gear-driven by spur gears via an
intermediate gear connecting with a pinion on the
right hand end of the crankshaft.NORTON ELECTRA
Dean Hogarth with his ex-Clem Foster Manx Norton.The Electra
engine revealed.