India-bound 650 cc Norton Atlas Ranger & Atlas Nomad unveiled

17/11/2018 - 11:13 Norton Atlas 650, Norton Motorcycles Suvil Susvirkar

British two-wheeler brand, Norton Motorcycles has unveiled one of its most anticipated products, the Atlas. The Norton Atlas will be available in two variants, Atlas Ranger and Atlas Nomad. The 650cc twin-cylinder powered motorcycles would also arrive in the Indian market.

Norton Atlas Ranger Right Side — The off-road focused Norton Atlas Ranger features tall-set front fender, headlight grille, bash plate and a relatively larger front wheel.

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The motorcycles are built around a Twin-tube seamless steel perimeter chassis with aluminium swingarm mount and are powered by the same 650cc parallel twin-cylinder engine. They even share a near-identical design.

However, the Atlas Nomad is aimed to be a road-focused motorcycle while the Atlas Ranger is designed to take the beaten path. Thus, the latter comes with a tall-placed front fender, a bash plate and a relatively larger front wheel (19-inch vs 18-inch on the Nomad). A headlight grille further enhances its off-road persona. A small windscreen gives it a touring friendly fascia. Other changes over the Nomad include more extended suspension travel (200mm vs 150mm) on both ends and a tall saddle (867mm vs 824mm).

The Nomad, on the other hand, features a conventionally placed front fender and misses on bash plate and headlight grille. The road focused Nomad gets 150mm of suspension travel, which is 50mm lower than the Atlas Ranger. That said, both motorcycles use beefy 50mm diameter Roadholder USD forks at the front that are preload, compression and rebound adjustable. At the rear is a Roadholder monoshock with rising rate linkage and piggyback reservoir. The back features adjustable preload. The seat on the Nomad is relatively close to the ground at 824mm. The shorter wheelbase as compared to the Ranger (1,470mm vs 1,446mm) should make the Nomad relatively agile.

Propelling tasks are performed by Norton’s 650cc parallel twin-cylinder, DOHC, liquid-cooled, fuel-injected engine with 270-degree firing order. The motor is tuned to deliver 84 bhp of maximum power and 64 Nm of peak torque. Stopping power comes from twin 320mm full floating discs at the front with radially mounted twin Brembo monoblock callipers while at the rear is a single 245mm disc with Brembo twin-piston calliper. Dual-channel ABS comes as standard.

Other features shared by both motorcycles include full LED lighting (headlight, DRL, blinkers and tail lamp), 15-litre fuel tank and a tall-set exhaust.

Norton Atlas Nomad Right Side — The road-focused Norton Atlas Nomad misses on bash plate, headlight grille and tall-set front fender. It also gets an 18-inch front wheel instead of a 19-inch unit on the Atlas Ranger.

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The motorcycles would be available in five options. The colours are divided into two sub-groups - Factory and Specials. The Factory range includes Titanium Grey and Manx Silver. The Specials feature Royal Red, Galactic Black and Diamond White. The India launch, as told by Ajinkya Firodia, Managing Director, Motoroyale Kinetic, would happen in 2020. It is expected to arrive with a premium price tag.