In Conversation with Dick Powell, Designer of the Rotary-engined Norton F1

Above, from left: Richard Seymour and Dick Powell, designers of the legendary rotary-engined Norton F1, a quite unique motorcycle from the early-1990s, which still has its own dedicated fan base today

Dick Powell is co-founder of Seymourpowell, a well-known UK-based design company with a formidable portfolio of work. Set up in 1984, Seymourpowell has designed everything from cordless kettles mobile phones, cars, trains, planes and, yes, motorcycles. Along with the other co-founder, Richard Seymour, Dick Powell designed the rotary-engined Norton F1, an iconic machine and one that I’m a big fan of. Back in 2016, I had an opportunity to do an interview with Dick Powell and ask him a few questions about the legendary Norton. Here are some excerpts from the conversation.

How, and when, did you get started with industrial design?

Seymourpowell officially started in 1984. Both Richard Seymour and I were at the Royal College of Art. Our first motorcycle client was Yamaha for whom we did many projects during the 1980s and early-90s, including building full-size working prototypes of concept bikes. We also worked for BMW and later created the world’s first hydrogen-fuelled motorcycle called ENV.

Tell me a bit about your interest in motorcycles? Do you like bikes, and do you ride? How and when did Norton first approach you, and how did you get started with designing motorcycles for them?

I have had a full license since I was 16 years old and have been riding bikes ever since. I have three bikes: a Honda RC30, a Yamaha R1 and a KTM Adventure. Richard Seymour too has been a biker all his life.

Our first contact with Norton came via The Design Council, which was running a service for industry called FCS (Funded Consultancy Service), whereby a company could commission design work and have a significant part of the cost funded by government. This was before Norton had officially launched their air-cooled Wankel rotary engine bike and they were in the process of developing the water-cooled Wankel rotary engine. We were asked to consider the design implications for the water-cooled engine but, in the event, we went back to them with a full strategic report outlining what they should be doing.

That report sat around for a while until the business, verging on liquidation, was bought by Phillipe Le Roux. He turned up our report (he said he found it in a drawer!) and saw much common sense in it. On our first visit to Lichfield with Le Roux, we met Brian Crighton who, in his own time, was trying to develop a racing version of the engine. 

Norton’s Wankel engine, in both air-cooled and water-cooled versions was hampered by poor breathing. Air that eventually ended up being mixed with fuel had to pass through a labyrinthine route which included passing through the middle of the rotor shaft. This both constricted the incoming air and made it far too hot. Brian’s brilliant idea was to put what he called an ‘exhaust ejector’ on the exhaust; this was effectively a venturi whose low pressure dragged the necessary cooling air through the internals which, in turn allowed air for the carbs to arrive unrestricted. This simple device released masses of horsepower (from memory, almost doubling the engine output). Our strongest recommendation to Le Roux was to make Brian’s personal project into a formal part of Norton strategy: that they go racing to demonstrate the technology and underpin the later launch of a sports bike.

We put them in touch with Spondon, who had built chassis for SP before, and the project took off with the results that everyone knows about. But, the immediate and urgent need was to get the water-cooled engine into a viable motorcycle with a ready market – this being the police bike, which later became a consumer machine, the Norton Commander. We recommended that because Norton already had a close relationship with the UK Police – some air-cooled bikes had already been supplied to them – and no dealer network was needed to start generating some cash.

Following the police bike, we got the go-ahead to start on the sports bike. By then, the racing team had been formed with JPS sponsorship. I remember well showing up at Mallory, where they were testing, to ride the race bike where, under the worried gaze of Brian and the amused gaze of Trevor Nation, I lurched around Mallory in my ACU novice’s pink jacket. I hadn’t ever ridden a bike on slicks and I hadn’t ever ridden with a reversed gear-change, but I had done track days at Mallory and knew my way around. With Brian’s instructions to not bin it ringing in my ears, I still managed to lock it up going into the hairpin (that reverse gear change!) but managed to enjoy a few laps at a very modest pace!

Regarding the Norton F1, what was the design brief given to you by the company? What did they want you to accomplish with the design?

The brief was to turn the race bike into a sports bike using as many off the shelf parts as possible. What we hadn’t realised at the beginning was that a road machine could not use Brian’s power liberating exhaust ejector for reasons of noise (anyone who witnessed the racers can testify to that!) and emissions, which were a consequence of using oil mist for lubrication. So, the promise of a high-performance sports machine was neutered before we started and that, more than any other single thing, dogged the bike thereafter. Beyond that, we wanted to keep as much of the racer as was possible including, of course, the Spondon chassis, the engine, and ancillaries. Apart from the bodywork, most of the other bits came from various Yamahas I think.

What were your initial thoughts when you first set about designing the Norton F1? Was the design benchmarked against the other existing sport bikes/superbikes of that time? The F1 had a fully enclosed fairing like that of the late-1980s Honda CBR1000F and CBR600F. Were the Hondas in any way a design inspiration for the F1? 

We had recently done a ‘futures' study for Yamaha and identified a growing trend toward aerodynamic enclosure. From memory, I think Honda’s first CBR600 was just launched and, around the same time, their CB1000F and, of course, Bimota's DB1. Both Rich and I rode Bimotas (me an SB4 and Rich an HB2), both of which had one-piece bodies, which covered the real tank. All these bikes pointed towards more aerodynamic bodywork as a future direction. Additionally, bodywork was a good idea to keep mechanical noise at bay and, looking ahead, allowed for future bikes, which could capitalise on existing internals with investment only needed for bodywork variations.

We felt that just doing a straight race replica was not the right thing to do for Norton – for a start, we didn’t know how successful racing was going to be and tying sales to race track success seemed risky. And second, the Japanese were all over that, so it would be hard to compete with them on price. We felt the bike deserved a new identity which was more Porsche than straight race replica. More sophisticated in the sense that, being expensive, it needed to sell to bikers who wanted something a bit more exclusive and less race-honed – like a Bimota or, back then, a Ducati.

The original vision was for a very enclosed bike where the form of the rider was visible, as if moulded into the bodywork. The rear hugger was quite groundbreaking, tidying up the airflow exiting the engine and from under the bike. To the designer’s eye, this served to integrate the bike into one whole, seamless form.

Did the fact that the F1 was powered by a rotary engine create any specific problems/challenges for you? When the F1 was launched, what kind of a response did it get from the motorcycling world in general, and prospective customers in particular?

Well, the only problems which we learned about after we built it – no one told us about the cooling requirements, and we had no idea just how much heat this engine generated; what was fine at high speed on a race track was only just adequate for stop/start traffic. As I said above, the bike promised much, but just could not deliver competitive power without its exhaust ejector.

I remember the launch at Earls Court where there was a huge buzz about it. And yes, it was thought to be contemporary but not, I think, too radical. We were immensely proud of it and still are! We won a Design Week Award Best of Show for it and Rich did a brilliant ad, titled ‘Son of a Bitch’, which Norton got cold feet about and barely ran. There was a strong feeling that the bike represented a new start (again!) for Norton and there was a will for the business to succeed, and a national fervour for that helped, it must be said, by success on the racetrack.

A quarter of a century later, what are your thoughts on the current state of motorcycle design, and how it's evolved over the last 3-4 decades?

What stands out most over the decades was the rise of the high-performance sports bike, which increasingly emulated what the brands did on the track, best exemplified by the Honda RC30. And, of course, the rise of Ducati, kick started by the seminal 916. From a design perspective, much has happened in creating new bike categories – we worked on many of these for Yamaha.

Your thoughts on the current Norton revival? Do you like the new Dominator and the Commando 961? Do you think Norton should move on from retro-styled bikes and do something brand-new? What do you think should be the design direction for new Norton motorcycles?

Yes, I love the new bikes – they have captured the zeitgeist of the times where the retro ’50s and ’60s based café racers are finding a market with people who want to capture some of the magic of a former time. Retro trends tend to reach back to a point in time just beyond peoples’ direct personal experience. Norton need to bear that in mind when thinking about what kind of bike to develop – they clearly understand this and the difficulty of competing with brands with huge facilities and capability.

If you had to design the Norton F1 today, would it be any different from what you did back then?

If the F1 had had the power of the racer, it would have been a completely different story – winning on track would have translated to sales, but there was no denying that it was under-powered for what it purported to be. And this at a time when buyers were really beginning to understand that they could have a real racer on the road. So yes, doing a similar project for Norton now, it would be completely different!

What are some of your current favourite motorcycles, purely from the styling/design perspective? Do you think electric bikes, with their big, heavy batteries, will bring a fresh set of challenges to motorcycle designers in the near future?

I love the design and engineering of the Ducati Panigale and, for the same reason, Honda’s exclusive RCV. I think that the most important development in all future vehicles (not just bikes) will be batteries. They will get lighter, smaller and ever more powerful with, eventually, recharge cycles which make them a viable alternative to petrol as the technologies mature. That’s exciting for designers, as the architecture (or packaging) is completely different and that, in turn, will bring exciting new opportunities!

Note: I interviewed Dick Powell for one of my other websites, Faster and Faster, in 2016. I had to shut down Faster and Faster, but have posted this interview here and I hope it will stay here forever.