Kenny Dreer, the man who almost brought Norton back from the grave several years ago, got his start restoring motorcycles from the British marque at his shop called Vintage Rebuilds (VR) near Portland, Oregon. As the 1990s came to an end, he started building his own variant of the Commando, which he called the Norton VR880.
Less than 50 were built – I’ve seen people claim that the production run was exactly 48 but I can’t find official confirmation of the number. This example is even rarer as it was custom built for Cycle World (note the “Cycle World Special”) on the sidecover. A quick search found this image:
which shows that this bike was originally raffled off by Cycle World with proceeds going to the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation – a worthy cause if you’ve got some cash burning a hole in your pocket. This specific Norton VR880 (VIN: 307433) has 6,750 miles and is equipped with Ceriani forks, triple Brembo discs, custom hubs and swing arm, and was converted to oil in tank with an oil cooler.
Find this Norton VR880 for sale in Venice, California with bidding up to $10,723 and the reserve not yet met or a BIN of $17,999