Back when desert racing was the sport of kings in the southwestern United States, Rob Blair (Norton’s California distributor) shoehorned a 750cc Atlas engine into a Matchless 85CS frame. When Norton found out about it, it became “Project 11”, which was dubbed P11 when Norton officially released it in 1967. A year later the model was slightly modified to become street legal and it was called the P11A (also called the Ranger). This example has been in storage for 37 years and the seller just got it running again this month.
By ’69, desert racing was being dominated by much lighter two-strokers and the Commando had started to take off – the P11/Ranger was killed off. According to marque expert Anthony Curzon, just 495 of these Rangers were sold (all outside of England). For more information on the P11 (the predecessor to the Ranger), check out this “Classic Iron” profile on Motocross Action Magazine.
This numbers-matching example (VIN: 128716) is one of 495 made of the Ranger 750. Unfortunately, it’s missing a bunch of the original parts. The seller is the third owner and he acquired it in 1972 with the parts missing (seat, handlebars, front fender, chain guard, exhaust pipes, air cleaner, and gauges). The seller replaced everything with new parts and just changed the oil as well. The paint is obviously in poor shape, and for some reason a previous owner welded the kicker to the transmission main shaft. Find this Ranger for sale in Bothell, Washington with bidding up to $3,750 and the reserve not yet met