Listen As the Norton Nemesis Engine Fires into Life

In the summer of 2023, Allen Millyard took on the mammoth task of getting the and only example of the Norton Nemesis back to running condition.

It’s taken a little over a year from that original promise being made for the bike to finally breathe into life, roaring for a few short moments in the back garden of the aforementioned Mr Millyard.

And there’s a good reason that it's taken a bit longer than the average barn-find project to get to this point. The Nemesis was (and still is) a full-on prototype motorcycle. With very few of its components being what you could call ‘off the shelf’. Moreover, many of the technical drawings and diagrams relating to the bike’s ancillary systems have either been lost or binned, meaning it’s taken all of Mr Millyards engineering knowhow to get the 1,500cc V8 engine firing on all cylinders.

While the engine fire-up you can see here isn’t the very first time the engine has run under its own steam, a brief run the bike had on the workbench has taken place, it is the first time the engine has run while sitting in the frame, with all the fuel and electric ancillary systems fixed in place.

What’s surprising with the engine, or maybe not so considering who is doing the spannering, is how easily the engine fires and how sweet it sounds once it’s up and running. For an engine that hasn’t run since the early 2000s. It also sounds absolutely awesome as it rumbles out of its straight-through exhaust pipes!

What next for the Nemesis seems to be an actual wheels-in-motion run on the bike, which should be enough for Mr Millyard and his team to check over the gearbox, brakes and suspension of the machine. We’ll be staying tuned for when that episode also lands!

Find all the latest motorcycle news on Visordown.com