1970 Norton Hogslayer

Norton

1970

880cc

About the 1970 Norton Hogslayer

Drag strip legend

The Museum is proud to own Hogslayer, the awesome 1760cc machine with British-made Norton engines that ruled American drag strips in the mid-Seventies. Tom “TC” Christenson from Kenosha, Wisconsin rolled out his first double-engined Norton in 1970. Using throttle-controlled fuel injection on a pair of tuned twin-cylinder Commando motors, he called the bike Hogslayer to taunt his Harley-Davidson rivals.

In 1972 the snorting 180mph Norton won two national showdowns in New Jersey and California, humbling top H-D and Triumph aces and setting the standing-start quarter-mile record at 8.52 seconds.

Christenson went on to win every major drag race in US, flying the Norton flag in front of huge crowds and on TV. Hogslayer also made guest appearances in Britain, running Europe’s first sub-nine seconds quarter-mile at Silverstone in 1974. In 1975, TC blasted to four sub-eight second runs at California’s Ontario Raceway, being only narrowly beaten into the “sevens” by a 3.2 litre rival with three Japanese four-cylinder engines.

Hogslayer was continually developed with the latest drag racing innovations and ever-wider rear tyres to make use of an astonishing 300-plus horsepower. John Gregory of Sunset Motors, a Norton agency in Kenosha, was behind many key technical developments, including the two-speed transmission with a self-feeding clutch. The engines relied on mostly standard Norton parts, but were adapted to run on nitro-methane fuel and enlarged from 750cc to 880cc.