Triumph In The 1970’s…..

I watched this yesterday, really interesting.

 

Yes, such a shame. I always loved the American style bonnie. I knew someone years ago, and we went down to Brighton from Crawley and back, the first thing he said to me when we parked up outside my garage was, have you got a rag. The bike and his left boot was covered in oil.
If only they'd invested more in tooling and upgraded their manufacturing process, then who'd have known what the outcome might have been.
I still love the sound of the original twins, and that Trident T160, that's on another level.

 

Not Triumph, but BSA - I was just reading about their 1956 C12 250's. These were apparently pretty basic transport, but about the same time their chief engineer was developing a new 250 codenamed MC4 - it was basically half an A7 twin and the prototypes proved to be fast and reliable.

Unfortunately management decided it wasn't needed as the C12 had just been released, and even when the French distributor offered to set up a plant to produce the MC4 bikes, management said no.

So far so bad, but then in 1956 BSA managers decided the 3 MC4 prototypes should be destroyed and stood by as hammer wielding apprentices smashed them to pieces with a manager confirming when they were beyond use. What a crazy management decision.... and we blame the Japanese!!

There was one stashed away in the basement which seemed to survive - the story is in Classic Bike Guide.

 

Here’s another related YouTube video