One thing I noticed, from my time as a Triumph dealership mechanic was build quality. If you look at Honda castings, for instance, there is a marked difference in quality from the Triumph and BSA items. I am a believer that the quality control issues that plagued the British motorcycle industry also plagued their suppliers as well. While Honda was worshiping at the alter of quality Triumph was stuck in the days of good enough. I rebuilt or re-ringed every triple we sold.. They were great bikes but there were built badly. That said, a well sorted three cylinder is a joy to ride. They are heavy but carry their weight low. They swing easily into corners. They make torque right off idle and do not require the high revs of their Japanese counterparts and they have the most wonderful rich sound.
Well I’m the old days of course the British did their own castings but it got to a point where even the dyes were worn out. The big mistake late on was a reduction in quality control inspections. Presumably to save cash. In terms of suppliers perhaps Lucas was the biggest single problem with perhaps poor carbs a close second
@@bikerdood1100 It was worse. Nuts and bolts were suspect, welds on frames, crank shaft forgings and it wasn't just the British. American made bikes and car was just as bad. The Japanese ushered in the era of real quality control. To be fair the British were using very old machine tools that had been through the war and the money was just not these to upgrade. The dealership I worked for got the last Triumph models, the TSS, the TSX and the Executive. It's sad. They really did go down fighting.
@@davidelliott5843 Having experienced all the bikes you list I will say that the Triumph Triple was still not like any of the Japanese offering with weight carried low and torque available just off idle.
My 1973 T150V which i've owned for over 40 years came with a A&M head ,should have bee sent back to A&M as the exaust ports were restricted, changed it a HDA head with no restriction gave a vast improvement in performance
I bought my '74 T150V new, I wieghed 128 pounds and that thing would fly. I still have it, all original except the electrical upgrades. Stll looks and runs like always. Through the years I have had Harley's, Honda's and even a Kawasaki. The Trident is still here and not for sale. At 73 I don't ride as much as I'd like but when I do I still get the thrill.
I was shocked by the amount of power mine had the day i rode it first. Fall of 1979. I had a CB450, and my Rocket 3 would whip it in 2nd gear. After all these years, I still have it. And its no leaving either.
Well as many British bike owners say, the Japanese measure their power in the wrong place. One thing that most more modern bikes lack is bottom end shove.
the T100 Daytona 200 Racers did exactly the same to the Honda 450 on the race tracks, usually shortly before the Honda blew itself apart trying to keep up.
@@gdmofo The displacement/performance ratio was all over the place in the late '60s. I remember watching a drag race on the road in front of my high school between a BSA Thunderbolt and a Suzuki X6 Hustler (250cc 2-stroke) and was gobsmacked when the Suzuki finished first! The T/Bolt sounded WAY better, though! I worked in a Honda shop in the early '70s but there is a BSA Rocket 3 in my garage - although my wife's bike is a CB550 🙂 Ah, the good old days...
My 1974 Trident was my entry into British bikes. These were quite cheap in the eighties when I bought mine with only 4000 miles on it. That bike tested me in every way, but it did seem to have a soul to it. I used to tour on it and eventually sold it after 60,000 hard earned miles. I do miss that beast.
@@bikerdood1100 I was warned by the shop mechanic where it was being consigned. Funny story is that I had the tank repainted cherry red and the bike ran terribly after the respray. I had it repainted black and it ran Great as before! Weird but there things do have a soul.
I ride a stock 74' Birmingham built Trident and I really love it. Starts pretty easy.........idles like a car with the Amal Premeir's I installed on it and the transmission is fabulous.........smooth shifting and the nuetral is easy to find at stop lights. Accelation is exilerating not to mention the sound of a triple is really neat..........an awesome useable classic.
@@bikerdood1100 The new Premeir Amal's are a big improvement over the old style. They were ok when new but the slides and bore begin to wear after awhile and then the idle was off. The big thing on a Trident is getting it set up properly from the outset. Set up expertly they run very well and are quite relliable especially without the viberation inherant in the vertical twins.
I bought a new set of anal premiers for my T160 it wouldn't run as the float levels were so far out one carb wouldn't take in fuel. Amal think that after paying $1000 NZ dollars for their carbs the customer should set up the levels.
@@brucegeange8991 I am surprised you found them to be out of adjustment. I will say I took mine apart before I installed them to be certain they were set correctly but I still would have expected them to be set properly from Amal. Life lesson.............never take anything for granted I guess. I do find that once set and adjusted they are far better in the long fun than the old style Amal's. Oh well I guess we progress in small steps............
Every time I hear that 3 cylinder music 😊,Be still my beating heart! Only owned one for a month, spent the rest of my life wishing I still had it.great video btw.
I had both Trident and commando and Honda 750 . The commando is the one that I hanker after. The looks ,the simplicity,and the torque ,pretty economical to. Your appraisal of the Trident was fair ,although with a knowledgeable and dedicated owner it can be mostly reliable and infinitely more rewarding than the Honda.. The commando I had was with the infamous 1972 750 combat engine,which gave me no problem !! The power was astounding for its day. It was the sheer gutsy thrust of the thing that I remember ,I’d have one like shot if I could find one and afford now ,I don’t care how often it needed rebuilding you just don’t get that organic feel on modern bikes, but then I guess it probably has more to do with my youth than anything, it ‘tis a powerful influence, ask any old codger !
Total agreement. I owned the same bikes back then. I do remember being told when looking at potential purchases that " It only has 14 thousand miles". In my unfortunate experience that was usually time for a top end. The British stuff sure wore fast and no doubt wasn't helped by tickled carbs washing the oil off the bores pre start. At one point I was so proficient I could replace a head gasket on my Rocket 3 in the morning and be riding before noon. I was young and didn't understand about warped heads and worn-out valve guides. Bmw ownership was a revelation but I'd have a Norton in a shot as well.
What hasn't been said is that in 1968 Rocket 3's broke all existing speed endurance records at Daytona reaching 131.7 mph. The distance covered at top speeds were limited due to rear tyres shreading. The records stood untill the Z900
@@bikerdood1100 If you want to know why the Triumph & BSA triples failed get a copy of the book: 'The Strange Death of the British Motor Cycle Industry' by author Steve Koerner
Well I did touch on the competition success but I can only fit so much in to be honest. The racer’s were very successful in Britain and Europe too but they completely failed to capitalise on their racing success. A race rep could have been a great idea but alas no
Two friends of mine had T160's, neither were very reliable despite having a lot spent on them, then 1 bike broke a crank so it got a full engine rebuild by someone who understood what needed to be done, the best modification made to this bike was to change the crappy Amal carbs for a set of carbs off a Yamaha XS750 (1980's? 3 cylinder), this absolutely transformed the bike and it became smooth, powerful and reliable and most of all, started pretty much first kick. They were and are a nice bike, such a shame that they, like the British cars of the time, were victims of complacency and a lack of financial backing.
@@MyZxcvb12 The carbs (if you can find them, they are hard to get) were almost a plug n play fit, didn't even need re-jetting because they are a cv type carb.
wow nice to see my Rob North Rocket 3 with mark parrett on board cracking through Ginger Hall in 2012 Manx GP ... we won that year and my 930cc stoker did a 104MPH lap from a standing start against the Jappers in the super bike race :)
I actually owned at least 1 of every year model Trident and Rocket3 also 2 different X75s over a span of 40 or so years. Also a bunch of different Nortons. As with anything some were pretty marvelous some not so much. I had 2 different T160s which I didn't care for. The odd cross underneath the engine exhaust meant that most riders never bothered to pull the sump and clean the mesh screen, Both my bikes had bad left side mains eventually. My 71 R3 was a treat as were several T150s. Your assessment of Triumphs missed opportunity not marketing a Rob North race replica is absolutely spot on. I would have bought one in a heartbeat. I'm not much of a fan of the 120 degree motor after owning a 180 degree Laverda Triple spoiled it for me. That was the bike the Trident wished it was. Having also owned and ridden Norton Commandos it was hard to decide which one I most favored (favoured). The Commando was more agile and had gobs of torque but the howl of a finely turned triple at about 4500 rpm always sent shivers up my spine. I sold off everything years ago. I'd own another triple if the opportunity arose. Thanks for the excellent posting,
The Commando was very different bike no doubt The great think about the T150 seems to me that prices are relatively good Unlike the T160 which is of course more rare
@@bikerdood1100 That's all true. The T160s were probably the best of the batch but I liked the 1970-71s which were no doubt the worst. I think the Commandos and Tridents took different approaches to similar ends. I live in Vermont and my Commando was a hoot on the the twisty mouton roads around here. It was a Harley eater.
Yes, your conclusions are bang on. We did have the skills in design and could have sorted out production but... "the money was not there to design such a machine". So the question beyond that is "why?". Why was investmemt lacking? "Constructed a very good machine from extraordinarily limited resources" a fitting epitaph to this sad tale.
Well in terms of investment capital, it’s complicated,of course 🙄 But part of the problem was that after 1960 sales of all motorcycles in the Uk absolutely tanked and with most of the smaller companies doing their business in the home market not surprisingly they started to haemorrhage cash. BSA / Triumph was protecting to some extent because 80% of sales went to the US market. BSA group have a few other problems however, the Dockers who had owned the group during the 50s squandered a lot of its profits but by the 60s they been ousted from the board, thankfully. BSA group however had broken into a number of other industries by this period however, car bodies the makers of London Taxis for example but while diversification is often not a bad thing in BSAs case they spread themselves too thinly and the management of the time had very much taken their eye off the ball of the bike division which is how Norton Villiers by far the smaller part of NVT took charge of the whole thing. Probably the biggest single problem was the motorcycles was seen very much as a Cinderella industry so trying to attract investment was always difficult and by the 70s pretty much impossible as Hesketh would discover in the early 80s Blimey should probably make a video on this 😂😂
@@bikerdood1100 Thank you for taking the time and effort to answer a question I genuinely have wondered about for years. A video on this would be excellent. It would fill in the missing pieces of the jigsaw in many other people's minds. You really do know your stuff. Top banana!
As someone whose first bike was a 1968 Trident that would blow the wheels off anything I came up against in NZ in the early 70’s, I find the comments amusing. I had a race with a guy on. Kawasaki 750 triple 2 stroke, between Tauranga and Auckland, a road that has many twisty bits and a few straights. I easily got taway from him in the twisties, and he caught up with me on the straights, but usually it took him a couple of miles, at which point we were at the next canyon. We stopped for fuel at one point and compared notes. I was STUNNED to learn that riding his Kawasaki like that cost him a fuel milage of 13mpg! THIRTEEN!!! I thought I was hard done by to be getting 38-40mpg out of the Trident when ridden at speed. As far as the old; Pushrod engines V. Overhead cams, etc, I will just say this; Royal Enfield have produced a 650 parallel twin engine that has more Horsepower than the smaller Triumph Bonneville replicas (I think they’re around 860-900cc) and they are killing most other bike manufacturers in sales, with annual sales that have surpassed 750 thousand. There is ONE reason for this; They have the second largest population in the world in India and so they have a massive advantage there. The OWNER of the company is a Bike rider and his influence has seen some huge improvements in all areas of RE motorcycles, especially in build quality. It’s all very well to blame the management of BSA/Triumph and they were certainly a bunch of uselss gits, just like most manufacturing managements, in my experience (I spent 40 years in manufacturing and I still wince at some of the stupid things I saw and heard from managers in that time), but there were other factors at play. Many people point to the arrival of the Honda CB750, but that’s a simplistic view, imho. The HOnda was quick, but not that quick and it handled like a barge. The unions in Great Britain at the time were far too bloody minded and this played a major part in the decline and collapse of the British motorcycle industry, as well as the Car industry. Many things contributed to the end of Triumph, BSA, and Norton, but the falling sales of motorcycles in GB was one that shouldn;t be overlooked. With dwindling sales, the bean counters at BSA/Triumph just began laying down the law and without investment by the company into modern manufacturing methods, The writing was on the wall. I have read the books by men like Bert Hopwood, who tell the story of management foolishness and believe it or not, I have witnessed first hand, the exact same kind of supidity amongst manangement people in the last 45 years, here in Australia. They will blame workers, but that’s unfair, as I have watched men struggle to produce 1st class products using machenery that is from the middle of last century, which has been ‘modernised’ by throwing electronics at it, instead of investing in modern machinery that can do a better job and quicker, all in the name of cost-cutting. All that said, the bottom line still comes down to having a decent customer base and a future that includes increased sales. Without that, there’s no real future for any manufacturing company.
I do think the Kawasaki is somewhat overrated these days And of course the Japanese measure power in the wrong place 74hp my arse How come it’s top end was less than a T150
A buddy of mine in the 80's had a Trident....he loved it...despite having to redo the top end nearly every other year due to the middle cylinder overheating.....I still have fond memories of when we sat in a bar he was barred from going into and laughing after using masking tape to rename his bik "yamaha"....good fun back then! (oh, this was in Canada in the 60's....on the West Coast)
Bought a '75 Trident new in the crate when I got off the Nimitz (Med Cruise) in Feb '77. Flew back to OKC to buy (Triumph of OKC....Rex and Leroy were the best RIP) Rode that sucker back to Beaufort SC...up and down the Eastern seaboard, then back to the Midwest (after I got out of the Corps)..and even out to Tucson before my grandpa died (in the heat of Summer) Never let me down. Still have it, although the top end is off again. It's kinda wore out (probably) 60k miles funny, one of my daily drivers is a cherry '72 Daytona T-100 R I bought 30 years ago. I put rings in it and fixed the Electronics (solid state voltage rectifier, etc) Haven't had to touch the engine in years. Beautiful blue/white..I can drive it to any biker bar and jaws drop. I was always a Honda kid, but I just wanted something different (not a Harley) British pushrod scoots rule in my book Neal
I think they are great bikes if well maintained, like all Brit bikes. They really don’t thrive on abuse. I never felt that having overhead valves was an issue, I’ll never understand why they didn’t cast in the valve tubes though. British bikes are great for those who like to fettle but of course the industry was changing and all the toys that the Honda had made it attractive to the buying public. In the same way that Japanese cars attracted customers with they higher spec back in the 80s
@@bikerdood1100 Higher spec was what made people buy them in the first place, that they kept working without all the little nuisances common on European cars, made them buy Japanese again and tell all their friends about their good experiences. After a CB400/4 and a CX500, owning a '76 Guzzi 850 T3 from 1988 to 1992 taught me to handle adversity and to appreciate Japanese quality.
My first big bike was a '74 T150V, bought for $900 in 1979. It was a bit troublesome until I replaced the points with electronic ignition. I think the problems with many of them were due to the dealers not fully understanding, nor wishing to learn, the maintenance procedures. I rode a T160 once, didn't much care for it. My current ride is a late '72 T150V. I upgraded that with the later disc front end, the comical brake is totally inadequate for the heavy Trident. The howl of that engine at 6000+ is addictive!
@@carolrowley9868 Saw both those very fast guys in action several times, along with my all time favourite. S.M.B. Hailwood. Cooper on various machines, Ago on MVs only and Mike the Bike on all sorts of stuff. Last time I saw Hailwood in action trackside was at Mallory Park Race of the year in 1964. Riding one of the most impressive racing machines I've ever seen and more importantly heard, the Honda 6. Two mates and my father attended and treated ourselves to paddock passes. The revived Gilera 4s were there too. My father was anti-motor cycles .."No son of mine will have a Motor Cycle". He had lost a much admired older brother before the war on a bike. However, a mate gave him a short lift on his Tiger 110. That experience changed his mind about bikes. My father on the pillion of a mate's BSA Super Rocket that day to Mallory Park up the M1. Dad had a long scarf around his neck which was flapping around near the rear drive sprocket. Travelling up to Mallory at speeds now illegal in the UK, I caught up the Super Rocket and alerted them about the danger of the scarf. One of the best Motor Sport events we ever attended. That including home F1 GPs and some on the EU mainland. Memorable day not least when 125cc World Champion ran over my foot in the paddock on his works Honda.😃
Thanks for a very well made and interesting video. Contrary to most commentators here I bought my first Trident perhaps 8 year ago ( 73 T150V ) in non working and uncomplete condition. I rebuilt it from crank up, using mostly parts of an original bike, but trying to improve some areas of it's original design. Perhaps this is why many comments here amuse me greatly. Trident bottom end is made very sturdy with all 3 pieces of a crankcase dowelled and numbered. This is done because they were line bored making a crank and camshafts run true. Unfortunately valve geometry is really too aggressive and needs better quality valves / guides than stock. You can buy them form SRM in GB, or Kibblewhite in the old good US. Clutch needs proper bearings and thicker lining for a plate to work properly, enough current is delivered by 3 phase alternator with regulator. Trispark ign system is expensive but works and helps old Amals with proper idle, not to mention one kick starting, quite important for this 74 y. o. 20 to 53 sprockets give instant acceleration from a stop light, but decent speeds on every gear. This bike is still stock 750 ccm, but with properly set valve timing ( all credits to Mr. Darby from GB ) is much faster than a current rider. Ah, original AM cylinder head has to be improved according to Triumph bulletin to have its restricted exhaust ports enlarged and rocker boxes have to be dowelled to it like the rest of the Trident cases. Without it rocker boxes dance around on a Trident head and tear original gaskets to pieces. Trident needs Cometic type steel head gasket and aluminum / copper rocker box gaskets to keep its top end together for a long time. IT has has a very good handling and decent breaks from 73 ( when used together ), I don't think rear disc break was a necessary addition for T160. It has a great lines of an old English bike from before the 2 war together with decent performance and handling making it a real classic you can use in everyday traffic today. Aha - oil leaks, couldn't eliminate them completely, however oil doesn't leak on a pavement from my engine at all. And the bike left for months in the garage starts without a problem in a spring.
We all are aware of the cause but many did leave the factory like that. Needing to take the time to assemble correctly is the root of the problem because it takes time and time was and is money
I helped a friend rebuild his 1969 T150 --we had the rocker boxes on and off the bike six times to try to get the pushrod tubes and rocker boxes to stop leaking...mostly.
The design was something of a compromise using so many parts from the twins So many parts, so many joints no wonder they leaked The Honda simply being a ground up design had less parts n less joints no wonder they were more oil tight
I bought a T160 new in 1976. For not much more money I could have bought a Kawasaki 900 Z1, and the sales guy at Clarkes in St Albans pointed that out. Back then 'Buy British' was considered patriotic so one hire purchase agreement later I was down the road. The only problem I had with it was the clutch. The single plate, diaphragm spring (same as a Mini?) clutch had a bearing which was not designed to take side thrust so it seized if I held it too long in London traffic. This meant the pull rod would shear and punch it's way out of the adjustment cover plate. I imagine most surviving examples will have the Norman Hyde thrust bearing upgrade (or similar) now. The left cylinder also used to occasionally burn oil which turned out to be the bike had left the factory with one scraper ring missing from the piston oil ring. Happy days!
Having a ring missing is really poor. They say that when companies cut costs they often drop quality control. Sounds like a case in point I do like to own British bikes myself, just feel a sense on connection with them
I had two T150vs in the 1970’s and enjoyed both until the Australian summers highlighted those centre cylinder issues. One seized in 40 degree c trip across the Hay Plain ( quite a remote trip) , time and a oil tank full of STP got me to Hay , Adelaide and back again to Sydney ( about 1800 miles. Another trip got me from home in Sydney to Yass, about 200 miles, where it holed the centre piston. I put it on the train back to Sydney and picked it up a week later sans a few ancillary bits that railway staff had souvenired. I just loved the sound and creamy power, but ultimately they didn’t like the heat and my skills were insufficient to keep them at their best. I used mine for commuting from the suburbs to work in Sydney each day, not really a good commuter but there was a perverse pleasure about riding and using such a bike like this. It’s all about the emotions isn’t it, despite the pain and tribulations. Your comment about Triumph making a modern version at the time, Dohc, electric start, etc, etc, is a nice idea but it would have meant they needed a modern factory like Honda’s. That wasn’t going to happen so really we are probably lucky they were unable to make something more complicated and expensive. Without that new factory, new money and new designs, It’s demise was inevitable. Oh, but what a sound!
Loved the BSA Rocket 3 and those Raygun exhausts were bang on they also sounded better than the round job on the Triumph . I am glad you brought up the point of it originally being planned as a SOHC engine people always say rubbish but knew it from the get go
Good information shared.. as a younger generation we never knew how things were difficult and efforts required to develop technology in those days specially in 50's and 60's. Now even modern Retro Style bikes comes with most bells & techonolgy which we take for granted. But I remember my Dad words, he always says in those days car or bike had a soul, character and feel of ride. One was connected with machine.
Excellent and fair assessment of these bikes. 3 of my friends owned Tridents, two 150s and a 160. One of the bikes went 50,000 miles before rebuild, the other 2 didn't make it past 20,000. The attempts at rebuilds were not successful, probably in part due to a lack of experience and no advice from those who knew. The frustration led to all of them giving up motorcycling. I rode the T160. Compared to my 900ss, it was slow. It was quicker steering, and had more vibration. They were a classic example trying to sell a parts bin special.
@@bikerdood1100 Totally agree! I assist in the rebuild of my friend's T160 engine. You'd think the design was an engineering school project that got a failing grade.
@@richardcovello5367 I owned a 72 T150 for 20 years.When I first got it It was showing 40.000 kms on the speedometer,already on it's second regrind and about to need another. The basic engineering was all wrong and it was easy to see why. That massively strong crankshaft failed routinely because the cranckases were impossible to align properly. The valve guides would wear in a flash because the valve geometry was too harsh. It would ping like crazy , The Amals were so bad they would also wear within a few thousand kms due to the wrong choice of materials. I could go on but the time is short....
I was a keen Triumph lover and bought a Triumph Tiger 90 in 1966. On the IFMA in Cologne I met the advertising manager mr Philip Cross. I was able to help him by translating German to English in a chat with a German Triumph owner. I' m Dutch and now 77 y.o. He invited me to come to the factory in Meriden. So I did , it was 1968 I think. On the plane ( Carvair) I flew from Rotterdam to Southend. I tried several hotels but they didn't want me, the Police arranged a hotel for me. I was welcomed at the factory by mr Philip Cross and mr Henry Vale and in the workshop my Tiger 90 was converted to Tiger 100 , 350cc to 500 cc. 27 to 34 hp. I also met Vic Fiddler, the sixdays guy . He gave me a bike, the KUE 65 D, to do some touring and I by strolling through his shop I discovered, under a cloth, a cilinderhead with 3! combustion chambers. HUH. I showed Vic what I found and he snatched it from my hands and put it back under the cleaning cloth and said.......ooops TOP SECRET. Percy Tait complained about the rain falling just when he was supposed to ride. My mechanic was Gordon Mattews, he invited me to his house for dinner. Benny was another, Polish mechanic who always got a flu when on holiday in Poland. Mr Hawkins was the boss and mr Carter was even more BOSS. I could fill a book with my Triumph and BSA adventures. And everything positive unlike Harry's "spare" adventures. Great people and more than 50 years ago. Getting old is worthless but not getting old is even worse.
Nice 👍 My wife ran a Tiger 90 from 65 It went quite well but was vibrant at high rpm Very smooth if you weren’t in a rush and was pretty reliable part from leaky push rod tubes of course Pity they couldn’t get the 3 cylinder on the market a couple of years earlier might have made all the difference
Thanks for such a great insight into the triples. BSA had gone and Triumph and Norton were dying a lingering death when I first started riding. I grew up with Japanese bikes plus the odd Moto Morini and Jawa/CZ. The bike dealer in the town I grew up stocked the Moto Morini 350 and all the Jawa/CZ stuff but could get the Bonnie by special order. I think he retired in the late seventies or very early 80s. Tunbridge Wells was the biggest town and had 2 bike dealers in the 70s and early 80s but they only stocked Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda so that's where I went shopping for my bikes.
@@bikerdood1100 I’ve always had a soft spot for Guzzis and air cooled boxers. I still have a R100 that I’ve owned for 24 years, other bikes have been and gone but the boxer has stayed with me. Recently I’ve had a go on a Guzzi V85TT and really enjoyed it.
Informative vide. I was in Perth,Western Australia at a country production bike race in 1972. Hay bales on the corners. Kawasaki raced a Mach 1V - the first in the country. In a straight line it blew away the Norton commandos, Honda 750s, T160s - the lot. Very radical 750 two stroke that made a raspy, ring ding ding sound ,blue smoke. In a straight line nothing could get near it. If they did, the Kwacka rider just lined up the next straight and let it rip. Mach 1Vs had to be fitted with a steering damper to handle reasonably.
You mean H2 750cc triple. I had one and raced it with no handling problems. Would ride it to work, put new plugs, chain, numbers and check everything and race it. Ride it to work on the Monday with triangular tyre making it fall into corners. Raced it Avon Tyres Championship, in open race and production class races and always in first 10. Totally standard bike, different league to the Trident l had that virtually fell to pieces and leaked oil like a sieve
@@monza1002000 Did you install a steering damper? I dips my lid to you if you had the nerve to race a Mach IV. I think a lot of them because club racers with expansion chambers.
@MrAndrew1953 My H2 had the steering damper already fitted. I loved it, treated with respect, don't ever snap the throttle open and always corner under braking or accelerating, never with the frame "loose" 😀
I bought a T160 in March 1975. It was a lovely bike in most respects, and had a key USP, namely it was physically quite small. As I was last in the queue when legs were handed out, I was able to physically handle the bike easily, and put feet down when stopped. Of course the reliability wasn't there, and I had to replace the piston rings after a while. Warranties on any British bike were useless, the attitude amongst all the makers was that they were doing you a big favour letting you buy their bikes ! I had to sell the bike quite soon after purchase to get a deposit for a house. When I came back to buy a bike again, all the British makes had folded, so I bought a Yamaha XS750 which had everything and never let me down. Sadly that was my last bike, as I met my future wife when I had it, and the bike just had to go. My father later thanked my wife for getting me off bikes, as I supposed they were worried about the dangers. Ho Hum !
Well same old story as far as British companies go On the subject of the dangers, this is really overplayed, more likely to die on pedal cycle after all and don’t even consider horses or skiing
Excellent video thank you! I remember in the early 90’s going to a dealer to look at a bike which was unfortunately sold when l got there. The over zealous salesman then proceeded to get a Triumph trident wheeled out, and the poor spanner monkey told to kick it into life. He was twice my lanky weight but was reduced to a sweaty heap before it finally fired. As they used to say in The News Of The World , l made my excuses and left. Nowadays I wonder what it would have been like!
Easy to be wise after the event (50 years so!), but the Trident's sad tale pretty much encapsulates the story of the decline of the British motorcycle industry. Engineers / designers not aligned with management decision makers, marketing and design complacency based on assumed continuing superiority of aging designs and production techniques, stupid unresolved internal politics all while customers started looking abroad for more inspiring offerings.
Not really about being wise, just stating what happened. The bid issue for BSA was that had diversified so much the management had stopped seeing motorcycles as their core products with a predictable decline in investment. How the management allowed the much larger company become the junior party in NVT is mystifying
My ‘69 has been a daily ride a couple of times in recent years. I enjoy it immensely. But don’t you dare to leave it for a month, ‘cause it won’t start without a carb tuning... it definitely has a soul. A capricious soul...
I worked at a shop that sold both including the Vetter rocket three, the center cylinder would overheat, carb synchronization was nearly impossible with Amal carbs but when running right the last big Trident handled better than our Ducati 900 ss. One of the most beautiful motorcycles ever built in my artistic opinion.
I had a T150v during the 70s and for more than a decade. I would have loved a Rob North R3. I modified that Trident a fair bit with ported head bigger carbs and 855 big bore kit and big dia 3 into 1. That size really suited the engine and would have been easy for the factory to match the output of the Kawasaki 900. But like you point out it was an expensive complicated engine with plenty of places to leak oil. Pushrod tubes and rockerbox gaskets which I soon replaced with solid copper. I prefer the A65 twins as they are more tunable more oil tight and smoother if modified. I have an 883cc tested at 85rwhp. And that A65 engine does not need to be bigger than 750 as it has high VE. And lovely punch and throttle response. The stud spacing on the cylinder head allows the casting to be ported for high flow and velocity. A cheap simple engine. That is also very fuel efficient. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8EfXleRSSI8.html
In the early 70's I was working in France and Germany and was using a 61 6T. Pretty and uncomfortable. I rode the Trident for a test. Bloody lovely. Handled like a dream, fantastic brakes and vented oil everywhere. I got the CB750. What a difference. Every day, without fail - key on, choke on, push the tit and off we went. Every time. It handled like a banana, the single disc was barely capable, ate tyres and chains every 8K miles, drank fuel and third gear had a tendency to drop out when pushed, but boy was it reliable. Dead smooth, comfortable. I put something like 80, 000 miles on the thing, in all weathers all over Europe. I still think it was the best engine ever to come out of Japan. I NEVER put a wrench on that Four in anger. I've had Hondas ever since. I remember stopping to help a Commando owner who had run a main bearing. He was very proud of the fact that you could strip his motor at the side of the road and I couldn't on my 4.
@@bikerdood1100 They did and they found it so easy ! They applied good basic engineering, allied to common sense manufacturing and a disciplined workforce. The Japanese took about 3-5 years to destroy the worlds largest bike industry. What I found frightening is that Honda (to this day) did little or no market research. I left the UK 40+ years ago and one of the main drivers was that to get anything done in UK is almost impossible. It upsets people, but compare industry in Germany, Netherlands, Canada and (especially) the US, to the UK and I'm amazed the place is still afloat. The GBP is now almost par with the USD. Hope I do not offend, but I call it as I see it, after 50 years in engineering over two continents and a dozen countries
@@MrRunner If the Japanese had got the handling right, right from the beginning, the riders of that era could have had their cake and eaten it. Yamaha brought in English experts to get the XS650 to handle more like the English bikes it resembled.
@@erik_dk842 I totally agree. I met many riders who selected the Trident because of its incredible power, handling and brakes. My priorities (work vs. pleasure) meant I had to have reliability over everything. I regularly travelled Paris / Toulouse / Milan / Munich / Frankfurt, so the Honda fitted the bill. My friend Toni Groot competed very successfully in the Dutch Vintage Races on one. Sad really, Triumph had few developmental funds coupled with an intransigent workforce.
Fastest bike still in production in the 60s. Born out of frustration in the early 60s, Doug Helle wanting to build multi cylinder multi valve bikes only for BSA top brass to say no time and again. The design sat on the shelf for 6 years before BSA decided to put into production as a filler bike until the new modular range of bikes came to fruition. Ugly styling then complete madness by Lionel replacing the big triple with the Areial 3 on the production line meant these bikes never matched their main competitor, that being it's stable mate the Triumph Bonnerville, a bike Triumph simply could not make enough of. In 1973 the last year of full production Triumph built 30000 bikes at Meriden, yet demand was estimated to be twice that number. After BSA sold out to NVT a 2 year sit in at Meriden would see most of Triumph's US dealership jump ship to Japanese manufacturers. And triumph would limp on until the early 80s when finally selling out to John Bloor and new chapter in their history began
Didn’t sell to Bloor they went bust and he brought it at auction after bankruptcy incidentally Could have saved a lot of typing and just watched the video 😂
I had a brand new T160 and I never had any of the problems mentioned here. Perhaps I got a rare good one but I loved that bike and to my eyes one of the most beautiful machines ever made. I think it ended up being bought by a man in the Isle of Man. Reg number WTV 275S.
I think,overall, the disaster with the 350 "Bandit" must have killed the company financially.Imagine all the fixtures and tooling that was made useless overnight, and it even if it was a very good looking, balanced design.
They made an awful lot of poor decisions towards the end. Bandits, Ariel 3. I think the Triples would have needed double their sales to really make a difference
I think you've summed it all up pretty well and certainly better than attempts I've made in the past. Missed opportunity or (mis) managed decline ? If you think about the political situation at the time and the whole corporatist approach that seemed (perhaps unintentionally) designed to keep production processes/ techniques in the past reflecting traditional "differentials" in terms of labour and pay. It affected the whole of British industry throughout the period you cover and reflected the increasingly diverging interests between owners, management, unions on the shop floor and their wider membership, The TUC, Whoever was in charge of Trade and Industry ( i.e. Tony Benn ), The UK Government and towards the end The IMF. The motorbike industry went pretty much the same was as shipbuilding on The Clyde. Heroic attempts by workers to co-operatise insolvent companies and save their jobs on the back of perceived orders. While the Government gave lip service, but hey that's politics. Pretty much everything went the same way eventually....a slow death. Ahragh !
I think a lot of the management had changed, they weren’t bike people and just didn’t listen to the workers, a fatal mistake. In terms of BSA not sure what Tony Ben had to do with it. I think it’s standard shit British management default, blame the men who lined your pockets rather than admit incompetence (Ariel 3) lord n lady Docker didn’t help in the 50s partying the profits away. Motorcycling is often seen as a bit of a Cinderella industry in Britain so they always had trouble attracting real investment. Fact is a lot of British companies were a bit too small and developed new models was becoming increasingly expensive. Look at the lack of diversity in today’s market and this companies are huge by comparison
Back years ago I had 2 T150s. The first one I spent a fortune on it. The sound from the exhaust was lovely. A hard bike to balance the carbs up properly but once done a good bike to ride. Wish I still had one of them. I always thought the T160 was a good looking bike and it was a shame that triumph went out of business. But now in this day and age the modern machinery is right up there with other world wide manufacturers now where it should of always been.
From my reading, they simply could not make enough of them. I’ve had my hands on two T-150s. One was a well sorted original bike. The other had suffered from lack of maintenance. Just like any bike of that era, you get out of it what you put into it. There was a litany of financial woes that ended BSA. The most comical was the purchase of license from Wankel to produce a rotary engine. That expenditure alone would have got you a vertical split case design.
Well the rotary was a mistake that ran and ran far beyond the collapse of BSA of course. As for couldn’t make enough of them, it must be said that BSA / Triumph have production capacity far in excess of Norton yet over 60,000 commandos were sold over a very similar period the fact is many Triples sat unsold in dealerships particularly the T160. They were a pretty big company by the standards of the time ( 300,000 original Bonnies alone) so the idea that they struggled to build the 27,000 the did is nonsense. I’ve read extensively on the triple and have never had that suggested in any of my reading. As for reliability issues well there plenty of contemporary reports of leaks, especially around those push rod tubes and holed pistons. I am a Brit and I love British built bikes, we have owned a few but it simply wouldn’t be right to pretend that all was rosy
i remember these bikes = i prefered the BSA Rocket 3 just the name and that side shot wow . but friends came to school with stories of honda 4 destroying everything around != so quick and reliable !
A lot of these British bikes got chopped in the 70s. I remember most every time I'd hear a bike going down the street I'd look and it was likely a chopped Triumph, BSA, Harley, or Any 4-cylinder Honda. I remember even seeing chopped Honda 350 and 450 twins. The 70s were the big boom of chopper or semi-chopped motorcycles. Even bicycles were being chopped by kids.
Fascinating piece of musing about the British industry sticking to OHV twins... My own feeling is that BMW and Guzzi were bought in the US, continental Europe and (albeit rarely) in the UK by a slightly different set of riders. I am drawn to the idea of NVT or some similar amalgam making a success of an OHV, chain-driven, civilised, competent twin.... But even in the day, both Guzzi and BMW somehow had a much better image, as long-legged, shaft-driven lopers.... It is a wonderful thought that NVT might have survived by "going Harley" and just doing more of what they already did ... But that market was moribund..... Good video about a sad tale of circumstance, poor timing and a missed bus to Progressville. 😢
Well the Guzzi and BMW offered shaft drive, reliable electric starting and superior reliability in an oil tight package so it’s no great surprise that they out performed the Commando which was a bike in serious need of a knew power unit after all Norton had tried to design a replacement back in the early 60s but the problems with AMC killed it. The Commando was a Classic motor but stretched and out of date by the 70s. I love the look of the Commando but then and now I’d go with a Guzzi Much more character filled engine than a BMW boxer and a better package than the Norton
@@bikerdood1100 I agree 100% on a Guzzi having more soul or character than a BMW. I rode several BMW twins (R65, R80, R100 et al). They were lovely, even the R65 was a treat. But they weren't Guzzis. Altjough.... even ridden like a moron, a BMW was somehow invisible to the traffic police... I've never understood why. But somehow BMW and Guzzi bikes had qualities that Triumph and Norton never matched. Not in rawness. Not in power. Not even in delivery. I think (in a very British way) Norton and Triumph twins had an insane amount of character and trumped their continental brethren. But I never actually considered owning one (or any other British bike). Many friends did, but usually as "classics", not as a way to get about. Great to ride; fabulous in a photograph; but not necessarily something you wanted to see outside the window on a cold, wet morning with a long ride ahead of you. Somehow, Guzzis and Bimmers cleared that final hurdle. Nowhere was very far away on a Guzzi or a Bummer. The local Tesco could be too much adventure on a British machine.
@@BanjoLuke1 in all honest NVT were short on cash and would have needed considerable government assistance, which in fairness is exactly what the others got at various times Guzzi like BMW were Nationalised at one time or another during their histories but in the UK bikes were poor man’s transport and the attention was on the car industry instead. It could be argued that the Bigger British companies failed due a lack of political will and general apathy towards motorcycles
I have a friend with a T160, bought new in 1976, who has done about 250,000 miles on it, travelling all over Europe with me following on occasions, usually with a light covering of oil on my jacket...... However, it was a bit like Triggers broom from Only Fools and Horses. I asked him a few years ago what remained of the original bike and his reply was just the frame and the crankcases...........
@@bikerdood1100 About 5 years ago, on E-Bay, there was a Honda CBF500 for sale with 350,000 miles on the clock, which had been used from new for transporting medicines around the London area. It had never had any real problems but had started to smoke a bit, so it was up for sale. There was a guy in the USA in the 1980s who had nearly 500,000 miles on a BMW R60/6 so, with good maintenance, high mileages can be achieved. My friend with the T160 also has a 9 year old Triumph 1200 Tiger which has done about 150,000 miles with few problems.
I was very surprised to find you have used some of the T160 Engine Rebuild video from our you tube channel at www.youtube.com/@classictriumph in this video at the 7:36min mark and then again at the 8min mark. I'm happy to share (but it would have been nice to have been asked and acknowledged). Don't change it. It's a great video. I'm flattered that you chose to include some of our footage. Cheers!
The first time I saw it Rocket 3, I heard it before l saw it, and I was smitten. I had 3 tripples, sadly all of them Kwaks. But the sound is what sets them apart for me, even if it was in a Vauxhall.
It's interesting that Norton sold Many more Commandos than Triumphs Trident. Could part of the reason be that they were cheaper to produce and were 20percent cheaper to buy.
I think this is certainly an element, also many riders liked the compact nature of a twin and the Commando was smooth on the new motorways too. It’s interesting because the Commando design is much more crude, only every had 4 speeds and non unit construction. For me it was by fair the best looking Norton ever
In 1974, I had the choice of buying a new Trident, or a new Commando 850 IIa. There wasn't much difference in the price, but I chose the Commando because, at 19, the bigger engine seemed more important (and the reviews were better). I loved riding that bike, but neglected the maintenance and paid the price with poor reliability. I look after my bikes a lot better these days and I've had my T140 for nearly 30 years now.
Triumph were actually playing with a twin balance shaft version if the triple, they gave an engine to English electric ( I think) & they actually produced one with zero vibration but couldn’t get more than 40 hp out of it ! (RIP my good friend Bill Crosby who somehow ended up with a crapload of experimental triumph engines !).
would like to see the Hele Hopwood early design. Have seen some of the modular design 500, 750 and 1000 designs that were also rejected by management. It was of if Edward Turner didn't like to see his 1937 design retired
As far as the proto type 4 cylinder went I heard that Norman Hyde had a hand in it's design and any engine castings needed had to be made out of house as Triumph's management were not interested.
The Triumph Quadrent was never a prototype, it was 2 Trident engines with a cylinder removed from each engine which were then joined together with an overhang to keep the drive in line, the crank was a pressed together with the mild cams made by Norman Hydes father. At Mira with it's mild cams it reached 125 mph. There is also the Quadrant made by George Pooley and the Rocket 4 built by John Anderson . What was a prototype was the T180 of which 3 engine were built, two road and one race engine ,the race bike finished 6th in a race at the 1976 British GP which is now owned by Steve Brown, one of the road engines is being rebuilt by the TR3OC and put into a T160 frame the other engine disappeared. The TR3OC also own the P1 which is at the Triumph Hinckly site
Had a go on my mates T150 1974 comfortable bikes I've ridden but the middle cylinder holed a piston so when it was repaired he swapped to the Honda 4 Happy days.
@@bikerdood1100 I've owned my T150V for 40 years, i did hole the middle piston once but that was the timming to far advaced, i thought the head gasket had blown as bits of piston was stuck in the exhauste valve when i took the head off. Road 70 miles back home 2 up on 2 cylinders
@@bikerdood1100 Only if you crash it!!! If you built the engine correctly with forged rods, good pistons etc one rebuild should last a season. Brilliant chassis though, handled a dream.
Did they fail? Ok, they were just as out of fashion as the Bonneville, when you compare with the japanese and european brands at that time, but in my opinion the T160 was - and is - one of the prettiest bikes of the 70’s. Another thing is that they were just as reliable when used hard as the British Leylands of the same era. Money were small at Triumph/BSA at that time, so they were forced to look at “what they had” instead of “what can be made” which meant, that from new they were already “old hat”. Also the fact that they wasn’t excactly known for keeping all the oil in them, wasn’t a seller either. Old spec carburettors, ignition points, four speed, drum brakes and utterly ugly didn’t help. The T160 could have been a seller just as the T100 might have been. Ditching the two most modern models and keep the one which had it’s origen in the pre-war time may not sound as the brightest of all ideas When i had my T160 i became so desperate that i started wondering if i could find a Honda CB 750 or Kawasaki Z 1000 engine to slot into the frame, and forget the Triumph one.
Lousy management killed the British bike industry - you couldn’t make it up how bad they were ,idle, short sighted and incompetent. Thanks for posting.
As always that was only part of the problem. Definitely the case at BSA we’re the management had so diversified into such a variety of businesses that that they completely took their eyes off their core business
Correct, could have been so different with investment and little complacency. Would I sell my Le Mans or Laverda Jota for a mint T150? Perhaps…..they sound better than a Jota imho, and nowhere near as usable as the Le Mans, so, probably not. What says you?
@@bikerdood1100 what made this one unique is it’s a 1972.5 with the 724cc engine. They still had the split air cleaner before it went one piece in 1973 with the aluminum nameplate. The tombstone decal was impossible to find and I had to get them manufactured. Originally a Canadian bike but exported back to the UK a dozen years ago. You can see the narrow US spec tank and high rise bars. Factory was blue and white tank.
My buddy Fred had a 71 Beezer Rocket3 I kinda egged him on to race down the freeway in 1975 across the Seattle bridge,,, Sunday morning , no traffic I was on my 1972 1000cc Sportster which had a cam & had blown off several other HD Sportsters I took off at 35mph & Fred & his Rocket3 blew past me like I was tied to a fence post. Embarrassing .
The T160 was based on the BSA Rockets 3 same tilted crankcases and similar welded frame. Unfortuntly they need more developement and some further modern redesign it's a pity the 850 version did not make it production. The crankcase assembly was just too labour intensive and expensive to machine and assemble in order to be profitable...
Well the engine was the BSA unit, I do state that in the film. The frame was not the same however. The crank case was indeed labour intensive, think I alluded to that too
If I remember correctly, all the works racing triples in the 70s used the BSA engine, regardless of whether they were badged as BSA or Triumph, because of some internal design difference which gave them a slight advantage (I can't recall exactly, but I believe it concerned camshaft oil feed).
I've got a Trident, made at the BSA factory, in 1967!! I think?? Eng and frame no 0057...one of fifty sent to USA for evaluation pre production I believe.?? Any info would be appreciated 👍👍 from Aust 🍻🍻
That’s extremely early, pre- production almost. Didn’t hit the market til 68 later in the UK because of the focus on the US market. BSA owners club I believe have the factory records I believe and could give you a wealth of information
I was in high school when the Trident came out. In study hall Cycle World magazine fueled my ''triple'' fantasy. Fast forward to now, bought a Triumph Sprint 1050 a week ago. I am not riding it until it's lowered so my feet touch the ground. A 30'' inseam but suddenly I am unable to reach ground with feet. WTF, all my past liter bikes weren't this tall?
I had ( reaquried) a beautifully customised T150 Trident, 74, flat tracker style, cut down frame Harley style; bottom end by Dudley Ward who assembled racing Tridents( getting on in years he said, It will be last Trident bottom end I build ad just to heavy '....I rebuilt top end , no leaks, no battery, capacitor and electronic ( no points) ign. It NEVER missed a beat and If took me, a mate to Italy and bacl. He satayed in Paris, I waa clocking 120mph back from Paris so realistically about 105 to 110. Never missed a beat....no vibration, awesome. Sad thing, after many years being reunited ( mag wheels, front and rear discs) I cant afford to restore the old girl. I cant give it away? Any help just stripping down and putting back together as sadly not as fit as I was late 1970? A real beauty if you like that flat track style?
I grew up in these times ( born in 1951 ) and rode them all, if a 750 Honda was faster than a triple or Commando. I never saw it; a 650 Triumph could easily outrun a CB 750 on a curvy road. yes, they were smooth and far less maintenance but not the superbike of their time! If your Triumph, BSA or Norton is hard to start something is wrong... I had a serios race with a friend who rode a early Rocket 3 and I had a 750 Honda. I was a good fast rider but had no chance. The Commando was a fast great handling real superbike. Great era, good times and luckily, I survived to tell as I saw it, but my hands are worn out by so much use of tools... i i
Well the tests of the time do bare this out. The T150 was the fastest bike tested until the Z1 and in 1970 the Commando S set a standing 1/4 mile time faster than anything then in production including the 750 Kawasaki triple. A fact that Kawasaki fans simply deny. Can only report what cycle magazine tested in 1970, if they don’t like it well tough.
My first bike when I got a licence ( sixteen and nine months in Australia) was a 67 Bonneville, I became fanatical on tuning, my mates would wonder why my bikes were so fast, I was double lucky as I could ride hard. I could never type a list of the motorcycles I have owned and restored, I had once a 69Triumph TR6P that was a special bike and wish I never parted with but now I have five great motorcycles in my house, the one I am mostly riding is a 70 BSA Firebird..
The problem for triumph/BSA was that as soon as honda produced a fast twist and go bike they were in trouble. The US doesn't have the profusion of fun twisty roads of Europe. Roads that a T160 would excell on and the Honda wobble around (a contribution to Harley's survival perhaps). Small bike sales killed the British motorcycle industry however.
It’s true we didn’t move into the coming world of highways / motorways. Other European companies designed their bikes for high speed roads, Guzzi V twins and BMW boxes being a case in point. The triples were an attempt to tackle this but we’re under funded. In Britain the advance of cheap cars like the mini really did for the companies making small machines. The industry imploded in 1961 much earlier than people tend to think today. The mini arrived in late 1959 and did the damage that the Model T had done decades earlier in the US. BSA / Triumph had good sales figures in America which protected them, for a while at least
I can tell you the answer to that question. It is because they were made in England. English Bike manufacturers made nice bikes, whose new models were more of a nuanced change than a technological revelation. They always seemed behind the rest of the industrialized world in this respect except America, when it came to innovation. For example if someone was to ask the average Brit who produced the very first vertical twin motorcycle, they would most likely say Triumph (Triumph was established by German immigrants to England), but they would be wrong. Horex made the first vertical twin 3 years before Triumph, and it was a beautiful bike. It is my opinion the English stole the idea. But how long did the Brits rest on their "we made the first vertical twin motorcycle" laurels for? right to the bloody end, forty years after the first one. The tridents and rocket three, was 250 cc too small. Other manufactures had shown how wonderful a 1000 cc bike could be HRD, Vimcent and Ariel, to name a few. Rob North showed us what would have been a great bike if it were a 1000cc (roughly). The conservative nature of English manufacturing was a mill stone around the neck of motorcycling innovation. Anyway they sound great and I have always liked them, but I could add my voice to chorus of "if only". That was answered by John Bloor very shrewd man. Don't get me wrong, I am no boy racer and never was, and in my stable I have a English bike, an A65 BSA, and I love its simplicity.
Well historically British companies had made some extremely complex machines, AJS V4s, square four Ariel for example. But the success of the speed twin sent them all down the same path. As too being 250cc too small, I’m not so sure about that, the Honda was also only a 750 was it not and larger multi cylinder bikes were a few years away at that point. And as the 850 commando proved more CCs doesn’t equate to better. Parallel twin bikes had been built in the veteran era way before Horex. And let’s not forget the Triumph 6/1 predated the speed twin appearing in 1933 same year as the Horex Seems you forgot about the 6/1
A nice 1960's bike but engine not good enough for the 1970's of Honda's CB750 and the Z900 which was like a spaceship! The engine was to wide at the gearbox making the footrests located very far apart making the bike feel very cumbersome.
Apparently it was lack of investment in new machine tools that caused the dated design of these engines whether it was simple intransigence or just being poor I do not know but like for like history proved Honda was to be the best seller in the end.
That is definitely the case. When being closed the liquidators did find machinery dating back to 1910 There was really no excuse from a management point of view for that level of poor investment. Speculate to accumulate. Honda management understood this
I raced a Norton Commando back in early 1970s, racing in Wales at Llandow a guy used to come and race a Rocket 3 with high bars in standard trim, he was good and hard to catch. 😎👍🙏
That was the problem at BSA at least. The company had their eggs in too many baskets and lost interest in motorcycles. It must be said that it definitely wasn’t true for all the companies at all. Some were simply too small to remain competitive others failed for a great many other reasons
Well there are pictures of the P1. I assume you refer to the first year production bike. There’s unfortunately a limit to the film available. I don’t mind the look of the T150, never been too sure about those ray guns however. I think the Americans in particular were not taken with the styling and given the importance of that market at that time it was a big problem
@@bikerdood1100 I read that when Meriden sent over the 'beauty kits' which was a rounded tank (peanut style), side panels, silencers etc the American dealers smashed up the 'bread bin' tanks with sledge hammers! Shame Meriden didn't let the Americans design it. As you said to little to late, and should have come out in '66 - 67 latest.
The Trident actually had a 180 degree crankshaft, not 120. This resulted in even firing. I had a T160 which was a great handling bike, if a bit heavy, though difficult to stop in the wet before drilling the discs! It DIDN'T leak oil, though I did manage to hole the centre piston by making a ridiculous exhaust and doing away with the bad flowing airbox without re jetting! Obviously now regret selling it in 1979, but love my 2013 Street Triple!
No that’s completely incorrect. You can even see the crank clearly on the video. Earlier Laverda triples had 180 degree cranks but changed later to 120 in search of smoothness. Early discs weren’t great as I pretty much state in the video, but they were fashionable. Those push rod tubes don’t link on every bike but on many beyond doubt. We’ve have two Triumph twins and those tubes were a pain in the back side. Need to fact check yourself about the Crank though before you comment again Though That’s just embarrassing Please check any information source you like No need to apologise as I know I’m right anyway
