Glorious memories, thank you! I saw it many a time at Mallory Park and elsewhere and have a few good photos from that time. What a pleasure it was to see Percy, Dough Hele, Norm Hyde and Co taking on the works teams with much larger budgets and often coming out on top.
1967 was the year that Triumph got serious about making the old 500 into a proper racing machine. 60+ bhp and over 140mph at Daytona. To me, the most desirable Triumph factory racebike.
feel lucky to share that start up after all those years. I remember listening as a teenager the stories of Percy when he was chief development tester at Meriden, by Jim Lee who was another test rider ,of the antics they got up to around the area. have met Percy a few times,when he had his own Suzuki dealership,i bought a new bike in 1978. also he sold Suzuki cars years later and my son bought a small 4 by 4. great man great memories, thanks Dick for what you do.ps i hope JIM Lee is still keeping well if he reads this.
To my eternal regret I turned down the chance to buy that bike in '83 from the then owner David Kirby. What was I thinking of. If anyone is interested there is a really good book on triumph twin racers which covers this bike in some detail. " Road Racing History of the TRIUMPH 500 unit twin" by Claudio Sintich ( in English) ( Panther Publishing)
As a schoolboy in the 1960's, I always bought Motor Cycle News and drooled over the photos of these fantastic British bikes winning the Daytona 200 ridden by Buddy Elmore and Gary Nixon! Great to see and hear this beautifully restored example in full running order. I also saw the great Percy Tait racing at Brands Hatch and Thruxton back in the day. RIP Percy. Thanks for posting!
Squish head combustion chamber, self generating ignition, all very, very old technology. Kawasaki had squish combustion chambers in their W1/W2 BSA A10/A7 engine copy road bike of 1967.
Lovely bike! I've worked on a lot of classic bikes over the years and especially liked Triumphs, and have a soft spot for the 500 daytona of the early 70's, what a fun little bike they are. So nice to see and hear this amazing machine fired up, a lot of history with that bike and at a great time in racing.
@@michaelhayward7572 No, I dont mind water cooling but take a look at the Triumph xrt and you hopefully will see what I meant. Its a jumble of tubing and piping that I certainly dont like I am of course of an age so just a personal view.
Used to go to Triumph at Meriden in 60s for spares, and see Percy and fellow testers doing their job. But do find it a bit far fetched to have left a bike of that heritage for 60 years and never started it. !!!! . Makes a good story but years ago you never envisaged the appreciation in value, and would have used it not admired it. Might be totally wrong though. !!!!!
Love the styling of the petrol tank, in fact the whole bike is a beautiful thing and a true work of art. I would love to hear that bike travelling at full noise.
Hi, reading in an interview with Gary Nixon. He gave the maximum speed per gear statistics. The one that stood out that I memorized was 1st gear - 72 m.p.h. My motorcycles up to that time in 1967 could not reach 72 m.p.h. " Hey! "
Started my '67 Daytona T100 in the shed today. It's been sitting for two months after a long ride 1,000km or so. Took it for a pass around my local rural roads. Nothing like it.
There was no reason for it NOT to start as it had received a complete rebuild and was as good ,or better, than new. Only a fool would try to start a 60 year old bike without a rebuild. Especially one with such a heritage.
@@Azzie492 I agree 100% The jeeezus lovers on Bikes and Beards channel do that all the time. They even ride them home, often a journey of 100 plus miles. Then they wonder why they ruined the engine!! But they are Americans… 👀🧐😎😜
I remember reading about Gary Nixon winning the Daytona 200 on one of these bikes. Back then they had to qualify by taking a flying lap on the oval and I believe Nixon's speed was 135 MPH. The next year Harley Davidson did a lot of development on their flathead KR, and crushed Triumph with Calvin Rayborn qualifying at 150 MPH and winning the race. I really enjoy seeing the race bikes of that era come back to life.
Too cool! My '70 Daytona is my all-time favorite, whether power sliding on a dirt road, bend swinging orcommuting around town, it's my idea of the perfect motorbike, and I've ridden and raced many others.
Percy Tait, huh? Hmmmm... Wrong seat. He never used the thruxton style that I've ever seen in any photos.. He also used the twin front oil tanks, not the single one that I've seen but it did bounce around a bit. The fairing is one of several he used..... What about the racing frame where the rt. exhaust wraps around it or vice versa? Or the magnesium front 4LS brake (BTW minus the custom frame I have all this. Hey, I could be wrong. And it is a beautiful restoration but why never run since the ... sixties? on a recent resto? I'm all confused.
I met Percy a few times and he allowed me to sit on Slippery Sam for a photo once. Another occasion, I had travelled to a race meeting on my BSA big single, which had a CCM capacity conversion and my gear shifter had come lose and fallen off. The only person I knew there was Percy and he lent me a set of vice grip pliers which I wired on. I used to live on the A45 dual carriage way (Birmingham Rd), opposite the Triumph car service station and he called in to pick it up. He liked my parents’ home so much he tried to buy it, but my Mum & Dad wouldn't sell. But he did buy the small petrol station and garage (now the, Vaaroom Motorhome Hire) next to the now Windmill Village Hotel. My biggest and fondest memory of him, was when I was at Mallory Park watching him on a Triumph Triple and two other Triples being ridden round the hair pin side by side lap after lap. The sound was just fantastic, fond memories. RIP Percy.
I grew up around early Japanese superbikes and Ducati twins. I was always amazed by how small, compact and light the Triumph twins are. I remember how out of place the 500 Triumph looked in a showroom of Kawasaki's. I thought it would never sell but the older salesman assured me it was a much sought after model. It sold.
I owned both a Ducati bevel drive and a Moto Guzzi Le Mans both these bikes were superior to the British bikes of the day. Ducati changed to belt drives eventually giving birth to the 916 and the Guzzi modified their V-twin engine, the British though stuck to the same ''World Beating'' formula and disappeared...Shows what happens when you thing everybody else has got it wrong.!!
@@brianperry What stupid comment ! The Moto Guzzi Le mans engine was based on a wartime generator engine, why didnt they change it ? Was it because they though they were better than others too ? Triumph, like the whole British motorcycle industry ran out of money. That's why they couldn't develope any new models, not because they didnt want to, or thought they were better than everyone else. However, many of the former British marques are back in production building world beating models again.
I remember Percy riding a Triumph at Mallory Park in 1973? I chatted with him in the Pits. When racing you could always hear the 'Thumper' approaching among all the ying yings screaming past. Such wonderful memories.
@@brianperry - Triumph were referring to Racing in America with Flat Track and Daytona 200 wins in 1967, 68, 1971 and numerous F750 and TT wins into the mid 70's, they meant it objectively as a company not subjectively as a buyer.
When I was in Wimbledon, I refurbished/repaired an ex Mike Hailwood (so I was told) works BSA Triple cylinder head which had the (Manx Norton style) "Squish' Head. You could see why they would be very quick, using twin GP carbs would have meant the Squish chamber would have had plenty of charge to burn more efficiently It was very different from the ex Works 650 Thruxton Bonnie heads I have worked on, in fact there was no comparison. I can't remember his surname but Triumph specialists Hughes in Tooting had a race mechanic called Ron who had a really quick Unit 500 twin that was really well known back in the day.
I spent a good hour poring over this bike at a show some years ago, took lots of detail pictures. Built in secret during overtime as Edward Turner didn't approve. If only some of the modifications used were transferred to production bikes. Great to hear it run.
Edward Turner. Clever engineer. But one of the orchistratos of the British motorcycle collapse? He famously said' don't worry about the Japs,they're only making small bikes. They'll learn on those,then buy our bigger bikes'! Read Bert Hopwood's book.
I raced a 'copy' of this engine built by David Kirby in a lowboy frame with some success in classic races . when I rebuilt my engine I was amazed how close to standard it actually was . Just a few subtle mods and a careful build . I even use standard terry valve springs and it still revved to 9k if required . It had the legs on good Seeley G50's etc. and could hold it's own against F750 triumphs etc. ( not B.S. look up the results )
Cool bike I use too own a 2000 triumph thunderbird sport white and tangerine, loved that bike❤ ,i remeber watching PBS television here in the USA and over sea sports shows, like soccer/football motor sports.I love the motorcycle racing it was my favorite. What ever happened to the triumph slippery sam?
I saw this bike at Castle Combe on several occasions, racing with Dave Croxford, Charlie Sandby, Ray Pickrell, Tony Jeffrey’s etc. Exciting times for us.
What was the bike that purported to be the ex Percy GP bike that Mick Hemings used to run then. Supposed to be the one that finished second to Ago’s MV?
Fantastic, we all need to know and understand how and what was done to the bike when it was put up for storage and display, it started and ran, extraordinary! If anyone has a checklist please provide it . Wow, wow, wow
