New 2023 Norton V4CR Full Specs & Price Announced!
now this week Norton announced the full details of their incredible looking new super premium super naked the v4cr so here are the 10 key things that you need to know about it now this bike is essentially a naked version of their V4 SV sports bike which is a re-engineered version of the V4 SS and RR of the previous incarnation of Norton you see Norton over the past few years have had a little bit of trouble if you’re not up to speed I’d definitely suggest Googling it and having a good read but the long and short of it is that Indian manufacturer TVs motor bought them back in 2020 and have been since trying to turn things around starting by finding every safety and reliability issue on the existing bikes and then fixing them now the V4 SV was the first new bike to be announced and we’ve also had updated versions of their Super Famous Commandos and then we also had this the V4 CR concept bike so yeah although
the underpinnings can be traced back to those original v4s this is essentially a new model name and the basic idea is to create a modern day monster of a cafe racer all the power spec and fanciness of their sports bikes but in an awesome new visual design with a bit more Road bias now I saw this bike a couple of years back at motorcycle live and In the Flesh I was absolutely blown away it’s definitely got that wow factor when you actually see it there on the stand and for me there are very few bikes as desirable as this on the market at the moment at least from a visual perspective that pretty much looks like a concept bike but just this Friday gone they actually announced the production version of the 2023 bike shed show and they also announced the full specs and on paper it looks like it should be a bit of a weapon so let’s start with the engine it’s a liquid cooled 1200 cc 72 Degree V4 and the sound is absolutely fantastic [Music] oh foreign figures look pretty special too so you’ve got 185 horsepower Peak at 12 000 RPM and 125 newton meters a peak torque at 9000 RPM not quite the upper echelons of the proper super nakeds like the Ducati street fighter V4 or the BMW m1000r the envy against the brutali 1000RR or Kawasaki supercharged zh2 but on the other hand this looks like a slightly different proposition it’s got a proper emphasis on style and design and a super premium finish and it’s really trading on desirability more than out and out spec sheets and I think it’s probably fair to say that 185
horsepower ought to be enough for most Riders as for the chassis well there’s a lot of attention to detail gone into this as well so you’ve got an aerospace grade cnc’d head stocking Outriggers and onto that you’ve got tubular aluminum that’s been TIG welded at the Norton Factory in the UK and Polished up to this gleaming mirror finish there’s also a Billet single-sided swing arm which is an absolute Beauty and that leaves the rear wheel on show in plain sight now there are two levels of spec one is called the manx which is the silver finish and that gets OZ Racing forged aluminum wheels or you can pay a bit more and get the carbon spec which of course gets the carbon fiber Wheels courtesy of BST now another key feature of the chassis that you get raised byte levels of adjustability so the ray candle the steering offset and the swing arm pivot can all be tweaked to get the handling absolutely dialed to your taste and this whole package comes in at 204 kilograms curb which is not bad at all probably the closest competitor would be the street fighter V4 that we just mentioned and that bike comes in at 201.5 kilograms curb so pretty impressive from Norton if not quite disrupting the market also I should add
New 2023 Norton V4CR Full Specs & Price Announced!
that the weight distribution on this bike could be quite different to the Ducati because much like an Indian FTR or the old style BMW f800s the fuel is actually located under the seat so you’ve got a carbon fiber Kevlar reinforced tank that can hold up to 5 15 liters now look I’m definitely going to volunteer myself at this early stage to take one for the team and offer myself to take one for a spin to figure out how exactly this effect said weight distribution in the name of highly important consumer advice now a quick word on ergonomics here there’s no specifics in the press release on the seat height but the v4sv is reported as a 30 mil which is pretty much exactly where you’d expect a sports bike like that to sit and given that this CR version is pretty much the same I’d expect it to come in at the same height so super short Riders might struggle but again it’s what you’d expect for a super naked what you might not necessarily expect though is the extremely low sports bike style clip-on bars which look like they’ve been transplanted directly from the SV other super nakeds like the street fighter or the BMW take most of their sports bike siblings but leave out the Fairing and fit some higher wider flatter bars for a better Road riding position which is more upright and therefore more sustainable for anything longer than a 15-minute track session so it’s interesting that they didn’t do that here perhaps they wanted to keep it as Cafe Racer looking as possible and this thing isn’t really about broad appeal and practicality it’s an irrational purchase that’s meant to be a statement and so the low bars do actually help with that
sort of striking look elsewhere on the chassis we’ve got a full Brembo braking set up so the calipers the discs the master cylinder all from the big name brand and the discs are pretty big too so 330 mil to be precise which should help with generating plenty of stopping power now at the rear there’s a 245 millimeter disc and again you’ve got full Brembo Hardware which is exactly what you’d expect at this level of price and performance now similarly you’d want suspension from olins probably and that’s exactly what you get with the 43 millimeter Nix 30 fully adjustable upside down Fork on some lovely looking Billet Yokes and at the rear there’s a bespoke olins TTX GP shock and again fully adjustable with hydraulic preload adjustment so it sounds like top-notch stuff the only thing I’ve raised at this price point which we’ll get on to in a moment and it is quite substantial is that you might expect to get semi-active electronically adjustable suspension which reacts to the road surface and your riding style to deliver the optimal damping settings in pretty much real time on the other hand though you could argue that the purest might prefer the simpler more predictable and lighter mechanically adjustable setup but I think personally on a road bike where you might want to cruise a bit then ride a bit quicker then Cruise a bit again semi-active is a really nice feature to have and so I’d probably want it for this sort of cash it isn’t completely lacking on the tech front though you’ve got the LED lighting all round a full color six inch TFT display with auto brightness adjustment and I think the design of the interface looks pretty good too you get a few engine modes to choose from so wet Road and Sport and there’s a six axis
inertial measurement unit which gives you lean sensitive traction control that ties into those engine modes there’s also abs of course there’s wheelie control an up and down quick shifter and keyless ignition complete with an electronic steering lock although the filler cap does require the key no torque of the rear-facing camera though which comes on the V4 SV and to be honest it’s a bit of a shame because I’ve got one on my Transit and I actually really like it now starting wise as I’ve already said this thing is definitely what you call impactful and the carbon Bodywork on the carbon Edition certainly helps to give it that super top end look as well as a bit of stealthiness but actually I think in this instance my preference might be for the manx version just for that tan leather seat which gives it a bit of a pop and silver looks a little bit more nortony anyway to me now there are some really nice details all over this bike but I think it’s particularly good viewed head-on with that flat round headlight a neat looking carbon fly screen and then flanked with those air intakes either side too the only slight shame for me on the looks is that they don’t have the low slung exhaust system from the concept shots the higher mounted bulkier can was probably necessary for emissions and whatnot but it doesn’t look quite as
sleek and it also reduces the impact of That single-sided Swing armor bit perhaps there’ll be accessory options on that front so like a track exhaust or at least if you’ve got the money for this bike then you could probably get something custom made to look like that concept bike for the price on this one is our whopping 41 999 pounds which was just confirmed with this announcement and I probably don’t need to tell you that that is a lot of money to put it into context the street fighter V4 starts about half of that at 21 095 pounds and the M thousand R is an absolute snip at 19480. even the Envy Augusta brutali 1000 RR and they’re a company not afraid to push on prices comes in at under 30 grand so you’d have a spare 10 plus thousand pounds if you went for that one so yeah the Norton sits firmly there at the top of the pricing spectrum and there’s only 200 to be made so at that price and with so few made don’t expect to see one of these parked up outside Tesco anyway as always I’d love to know what you think of this bike down in the comments below and also which would be your pick of the super nakeds money no object in the meantime if you’re on a bit more of a strict budget then there’s always the humble Commando which I made a review of last year and you can give it click give it a watch let me know what you think of it many thanks for watching today and I’ll see you in the next one
