This is a story about an iconic Norton racer, ridden by a man who understood both speed and survival.
Words: Rich Orriss
Photos: Rich Orriss
We photographed it twice.
Once under the polite lights of the National Motor Museum, where it sits with the quiet authority of something that knows exactly what it achieved. And once in the altogether noisier company of the Goodwood Revival where it looked impatient and eager to launch onto the track.
Even at rest, the Old Miracle has presence. It is built like a whippet – long, low, spare of flesh. It is as simple as they came back in the day. The slim, slab of a tank is painted in the iconic Norton colour scheme, with small laced knee pads exactly where a rider would clamp on when the banking began to rise. There is nothing decorative about the old girl. No excess metal. No concession to comfort.
This old single-speed, side-valve motorcycle that was born out of Bracebridge Street, is arguably the most famous Norton racer of them all.
The Foundations of Old Miracle
In 1910 the Motor Cycle were the first publisher to announce the 490cc 3½ hp Norton. The new bike made is TT debut in 1911 with both Pa Norton and Percy Brewster at the helm. Neither machine finished, but Pa Norton, never one to give up, took it back to the drawing-board, worked his magic, and entered it into the 1912 Brooklands TT with Percy Brewster at the bars. Brewster stamped the Norton name on the Brooklands bank, where he set a new 351-500cc class record at 73.57mph.
It set the tone moving forward, and became a popular bike to fine-tune and fettle, before taking it to the track to chase down the competition. The 490cc 3½ hp was the basis of the Old Miracle.
The Wizard of Brooklands
Old Miracle’s story is inseparable from Daniel O’Donovan – Dan to his friends, “The Wizard” to everyone else – a name given as a mark of his tuning skills.
O’Donovan was not merely quick; he was calculating. Based at Brooklands, he made a profession out of speed in the years before the First World War and was known to be extremely handy with a spanner. In fact he was so handy that Norton enlisted him as technical specialist, at a time when the competition department at Norton was on an all-time high.
O’Donovan is credited as the first man to exceed 80mph on a 500cc machine – a figure that needs pausing over. Eighty miles per hour on a rigid-framed, belt-driven single with perhaps two inches of movement in its girder forks, skinny high-pressure tyres, and a concrete surface that was already cracking at the joints.
That he did it at all says something about his nerve. That he did it repeatedly says more about his method.
The Beginning of the Old Miracle and the Scrap Heap Resurrection
The Old Mircale was born in 1912 and from the outset was used as a racer. After capturing the Two Hours and 100 Miles records, the machine was – remarkably – consigned to the scrap heap.
In 1913, O’Donovan retrieved the parts, rebuilt and tuned it himself, and promptly set about establishing fresh records.
It tells you something about factory life in those days, but it tells you more about O’Donovan!
He was not simply a rider. He selected Norton’s best production engines, oversaw their preparation, and required a reliable chassis into which he could slot them for testing. Old Miracle became that constant – the yardstick against which engines were judged and reputations built.
Records, and How to Keep Them Coming
Between 1912 and 1920 Old Miracle is believed to have amassed at least 112 national and international records, solo and sidecar. Some accounts push the total beyond 200 across its lifetime. But these numbers require context.
In those pioneer days, record breaking was part sport, part business. Accessory firms paid bonuses for national and world bests. A canny rider did not obliterate a record by five miles per hour in one afternoon unless he had a new model to promote. He added a mile per hour, collected his bonus, and left something in hand for a fortnight’s time.
O’Donovan understood this economy perfectly. He was no daredevil amateur chasing glory in a single burst. He was a professional who made the banking pay.
And yet there were moments when the arithmetic gave way to something altogether bolder. In June 1915 he covered the flying-start kilometre at an average of 82.85mph. On this.
Pause again and picture it: rigid rear end, direct belt drive, no clutch, no gears. Wide, low handlebars for leverage as the machine bucked across expansion joints. Concrete that rose steeply beneath you and dropped away just as sharply if you misjudged it. Those who rode Brooklands spoke of the bumps as living things.
Old Miracle was not merely quick. It was resilient.
The Next Chapter
When he later became a father, O’Donovan stepped back from direct competition – a decision that feels almost startlingly responsible given the risks involved. He entered other riders on Nortons before eventually moving north to join Raleigh in Nottingham. By then, his place in Norton folklore was assured.
What happened to the Old Miracle then becomes a bit hazy hazy, though as Norton property the machine almost certainly returned to Birmingham. It might easily have been lost there, another obsolete tool in a works basement.
Its survival however owes much to Graham Walker – racer, journalist and a man with a keen eye for a nice old bike. Walker recognised what lay tucked away at Bracebridge Street and ensured it was preserved. When he became motorcycle curator at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Old Miracle naturally followed and became part of the Montagu Collection.
And so it rests today – not as a replica or a reconstruction, but as the very tool with which O’Donovan plied his trade.
Under the Lights, Under the Sky
Seen in the museum, it has the air of a retired prizefighter: lean still, the lines unmistakable. Seen at Goodwood, with the smell of fuel in the air and aero engines clearing their throats overhead, it feels less like a relic and more like something waiting its turn.
For all the later glories – the overhead cam singles, the Manx era, the Featherbed years – Norton’s reputation for speed and honesty was built on machines like this. Side-valve. Direct drive. No frippery.
Old Miracle was not sophisticated. It did not need to be.
It was a working motorcycle in a pioneer age, ridden by a man who understood both speed and survival. Between them they made records, made money, and made a legend that has outlasted most of the concrete they once thundered over.
an article by The Girder Club
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