Norton Villiers Triumph

The Conservative government under Ted Heath decided to bail out the company, provided that to compete with the Japanese it merged with financially troubled Norton Villiers (the remains of Associated Motor Cycles, which had gone bust in 1966), a subsidiary of British engineering conglomerate Manganese Bronze Holdings.

[citation needed] NVT inherited four motorcycle factories—Small Heath (ex-BSA); Andover and Wolverhampton (Norton); and Meriden (Triumph).

[1] In September 1973 Poore met with union representatives at Meriden and informed them that the factory was to be closed in the next few months and all 1,700 workers made redundant.

Forced by American legislation to move all brake controls to the right-hand side of the bike, the standard used by most other manufacturers, including the Japanese.

In July 1975, the new Industry Minister Eric Varley recalled a loan for £4 million and refused to renew the company's export credits.

[5] The closure of Small Heath was also announced in September 1975 and when an order for Tridents from the Saudi Arabian police force was completed the factory closed in February 1976.

[4] Ironically, slated by management for closure, the Meriden site survived on Eric Varley's predecessor, Tony Benn's plan to exploit the Triumph Bonneville by a worker co-operative with a substantial government loan.

After Wolverhampton closed, having made Commandos from remaining spares, the workers took the former Tong Castle gates and erected them at the former Marston site.