Ben Schmitt’s name first appeared on these pages three years ago, when the legendary NYC Norton built him a Norton Commando race bike out of a ratty donor that had been bought from a Tina Turner impersonator (true story). But Ben’s love affair with motorcycles goes way further back than that.
“I started with minibikes at the age of nine—and at 64, I’m still doing it,” Ben tells us. Working as a lawyer in Kansas City, Missouri, he still finds plenty of time for motorcycles. He currently owns around 100 bikes, races with NYC Norton’s Kenny Cummings, and has recently started importing exotic two-strokes from Japan.
Ben found the bones of this alluring Norley café racer while trawling Facebook Marketplace.…