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From Bracebridge Street, Birmingham to Manchester Road, Castleton in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale: via a near twenty-five year span and several stopping places in between is quite some distance.

Yet, that is the route taken by a sizable stock of Manx Norton spares that were once manufactured and held in the famous old works of Norton Motors Limited and now sit on the shelves in the spares department of Unity Equipe.

John Tickle did go into manufacture of complete racers, coded Manx T5 (500) and T3 (350) both with the short stoke double knocker engines, in a frame of his own design but, success was not to be and it seemed as though the immortal Manx had gone forever. Tickle offered his stock and the rights around the trade in the late Seventies and in what must now appear a shrewd move in the light of Classic racing recent popularity. Unity bought it up lock, stock and barrel (yes, there really were a few barrels!)

During the mid eighties Ray Hardman raced a 350 in the Kennings and Four Stroke Championship events. It was built to the Tickle T3 specification and built from our own spares store. It was fitted with an interesting 5 speed gearbox an adaptation of the Norton 'lay down' box, a number were produced by Scandinavian Torsen Aargard during the early 1960's and distributed in the UK by Geoff Duke.

Stewart Pearson & Graham Rose (Team Unity)