I was inspired to acquire an example of the first Hinckley Triumph for several reasons and these are all important for me to understand what I want to achieve in refurbishing my Trophy 1200. I wrote about these in my second post but they sketch out the motivation. There are three things I think I'm doing, all rolling around one another. In part, it is a kind of historical exploration. The factory adopted a continuous improvement strategy as a way to address press reaction and problems as they arose. This is explained in the video produced for the factory in 1992. I find it fascinating to see how Triumph chose to evolve their initial designs. This relates to my second motivation: to pay tribute to the achievement of those engineers who brought a clean-slate design to fruition as a viable set of alternative motifs based on a common theme. For all that they were alternatives, they were firmly grounded in values that I share. Longevity, maintainability and a ride quality optimised for A-road riding. The components are incredibly durable, as long as oil changes and cleaning is not neglected. I rang the factory on the off-chance I might get some advice after I had a problem with my Daytona. I couldn't believe it when I was put through to one of the engineers who had designed it. Sadly, I was so gob smacked I can't remember his name. Anyway, he asked how I'd found it and I explained I liked to do my own maintenance (not that there are many of us left now). He said the design team had people like me in mind when they put it together. Hence the greasing points on the suspension (I wish I'd mentioned the accessibility of the centre plug on the triples ...). They were created in the first instance as real-world motorcycles. The third element, for me, it thus to return it to the road.
Historical motivation
After the first 100 were shipped to Germany, bearing special 'First Edition' decals on the rear panels, the Trophies went on sale in the UK in around March 1991.
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| 1990 Display board at Triumph Live 20 Years On |
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So the first part of my motivation was to understand in detail what went into this concept and how it was realised at the start of production. A kind of motorcycle archeology. I am fulfilling this both by dismantling and refurbishing my Trophy 1200 part-by-part as I go and look forward to riding it later in an as-new state. I can understand this in part by comparing the way the machine was put together with the construction of my later Daytona 900. For example, the 1994 Daytona 900 has significantly redesigned crankcases and head, created using a pressure sandcasting technique by Cosworth. |
Triumph were making about 5 per day in the early phases of production, pretty much all of the assembly by hand. As far as I can tell, it was put together some time in June 1991 because it is the 544th machine produced and so would probably have been put on the rolling road at Jacknell Lane in around the 11th week of full production. It thus represents the state of Hinckley thinking (Hincking)? pretty much undiluted (or unimproved, depending on your attitude) about the design concept from the off.
Tribute
I wanted to embody my amazement and enthusiasm for the achievements of Triumph Motorcycle Company in bringing it into being in the first place. I wanted to understand how it all went together and then to make it live again as a rolling monument to that achievement. Part of the achievement is often repeated but perhaps not as often thought through: modularity. Modularity made it possible to produce a set of variations on a theme, that's for sure. It also makes it possible to carry out a pretty wide range of modifications to any one of the T300 machines using factory parts. So I'm also thinking of realising variations on the first year of production that were not actually marketed. A 125BHP 1200 Daytona (adjustable suspension, sports brakes, twin headlight fairing) in Lancaster Red. A good friend of mine has all but done this (only the forks are Trophy spec but with 20% uprated springs). A 1200 Trident (or Quadrant) in British Racing Green. I could create these pseudoproduction models by virtue of the designed interchangeability of parts. This is not just a case of hacking off a fairing and slinging on a 'streetfighter' bikini fairing. It is actually possible to effect these changes with production quality components and fit. Because the range of bikes were actually designed to make it possible for the factory to do this.
I would not be the first person to consider changing genuine Triumph components around to do this. It's pretty common to see Daytona 900s converted to Speed Triples. I've also seen a couple of 'Speed Four' 1200s that have switched Daytona bodywork, fairing and clocks for Speed Triple items to create a fire-breathing alternative to the factory naked three-cylinder sports bike. These were sold new for a while c.1995 by Daytona Motorcycles in London with a dealer sticker on the side panels to mark them out as such.
Real-world motorcycle
I am an inveterate tinkerer. I like twiddling spanners. Matching the exact original showroom state of a bike doesn't really appeal to me. I like seeing how I might improve on the basic integrity of the way machines were designed and constructed but where cost might have restricted what the designers of the time could have achieved. And I HATE rust. Stainless steel pleases me beyond measure and will feature in areas most exposed to the weather, such as oil cooler and lower fairing fasteners. Ultimately, what makes for a real-world motorcycle is a motorcycle that can be used on the road and is sufficiently well prepared that it can shrug off the rain.
So there it is. Musings on why I'm doing this.
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