Production numbers and dates  (iss. 140)

The first direct source to find the information would have been the Norton Assembly Books or Engine books. The missing Norton Assembly Books for parts of 1939 and 1940 and entirely for 1941 up to August 1945 make it impossible to be specific on the production date of the majority of the motorcycles produced during the years of the actual conflict they were made for.
The reason for the missing books can only be guessed. The books themselves are heavy linen bound thick covered ledgers approximately 40 x 40 cm and 5 cm thick.They weigh a considerable amount and take a lot of volume. This may have led at one time to the decision to clear out the books that were not of much use. Many bikes no longer existed and there was no interest in military MC's (then!). It is also not clear when they were discarded, in between the mergers with AMC and Villiers or even after the demise of Norton Villiers when the Assembly Books were turned over to the Metropolitan Police, Stolen Vehicle Squad. From the Police they were First offered to the single marque clubs but this was overridden and they went to the Science Museum which initially made the books available to individuals. A policy change at the museum then resulted in the books being offered to the VMCC as the museum did not find it "their task"anymore to be a guardian of the technical history on motorcycles.

All other sources for information are  indirect. They describe what should have been or what was, but only for parts of the production. British army purchases went through the Director of Army Contracts initially, later the Ministry of Supply. The orders for the Navy and RAF were arranged by the individual services. No records have surfaced from either of these two services. The RAF museum has stated that there are no surviving records on Motor Transports. Other museums do not react to requests, I have not tried the Navy but fear the same treatment. It seems only part of the DofAC/MOS records have survived in the form of Contract ledgers (WO294 books) at the National Archive (formerly PRO) in Kew, London and some records at the former Museum of Army Transport Beverley which may now be with the Royal Logistics Corps Museum. Another DofAC/MOS survivor is a card system which seems to have its origin at Chilwell. Some of these cards are kept at The Tank Museum at Bovington. For ease of reference I call them "demand/contract cards" as they seem to describe the quantity of bikes demanded and subsequently show the ticking-off of various quantities received on a certain date. Unfortunately, these cards are also incomplete, and the information does not always tally completely with expectation or other sources.

The best available reference source "British Forces Motorcycles" (BFM) from Chris Orchard & Steve Madden also mentions the difficulty in providing the correct information as a result of the many corrections and alterations to, and sometimes contradictory information in the official documents.

The most elaborate description of the production information can be found in the "Military Nortons 1936-1945 WD-16H & Big4"  book first published in September 2025.

The authors of the "British Forces Motorcycles", have been so kind to allow me to reproduce the Norton production listing of the BFM book on the website.
This is the listing as found in the second edition. The third edition is amended further and for sale since 2017.