A history of the Triumph motorcycle brand

106 and going strong - A history of Triumph Motorcycles By, Trevor Hedge It is fair to say the Triumph brand has a chequered history that reads like a rollercoaster of success and financial failures. As is common amongst European manufacturers Triumph’s origins sprung from the bicycle industry. While Triumph’s image is as British as black pudding and mushy peas, the brand was actually started by a German. Siegfried Bettmann started an import and export business in London in the late nineteenth century, rebranding products under his own brand, Triumph. As Triumph grew Bettmann moved from London to Coventry and started production of his own Triumph bicycles in 1902. In the same year the first Triumph motorcycle was produced with a Belgium sourced Minerva powerplant. 1905 saw the company produce its very first completely British motorcycle. Only two years later production numbers had grown to four figures. Somewhat surprisingly, considering Bettmann’s Nuremburg origins, the Triumph brand became a major supplier for the British war effort in World War 1. A decade after the war ended Bettmann was now regarded as a true Brit and was elected president of the British Cycle and Motorcycle Manufacturers Association. Only a few short years later Triumph entered the first of its financial difficulties and financier Lloyds appointed an overseer. The ‘Cycle’ was dropped as a suffix to the Triumph brand name in 1934 as the company entered the car industry. Two years later the company was split into separate car and motorcycle divisions. Again, it was called upon to support the war effort and much of their manufacturing capacity switched to the production of military equipment. Too often however production was interrupted by the infamous blitz of Coventry bombings but the industrious Triumph workforce battled against all odds to pump out 50,000 motorcycles during the course of the war. BSA bought out Triumph in 1951 and helped the company towards its greatest success stories, and its biggest failure. The biggest success came with the launch of the Bonneville in 1959. During the 1960s the Bonneville name grew to become one of the most heralded in motorcycle history with amazing success in both the marketplace and the racetrack. The heat of competition from the emerging Japanese brands however sent the company into perilous waters. A range of mergers and financial arrangements throughout the 1970s managed to keep the company afloat aided by millions of pounds from British taxpayers. The British Government wrote off the debt in the early 1980s to help keep the company afloat but it could not be saved and production ceased in 1983. Property developer John Bloor then bought the liquidated company more as a real estate investment rather than a way into the motorcycle industry. The Triumph factory was demolished and in its place a housing estate built. The Triumph motorcycle brand was allowed to continue in small numbers through Bloor licensing the use of the name to Les Harris but in essence Triumph was no more. That was until 1990. The real estate developer turned motorcycle entrepreneur invested heavily in a new manufacturing facility in Hinckley which led to the modern day Triumph brand we now know. 1995 saw the company expand once again into the all important North American market. By 1997 the company was was well represented in every major international market and by 2000 was returning a profit on Bloor's rumoured 100 million pound investment in the brand. A major fire hit the main factory in February 2002 and it took the company more than six months to recover and get fully back into production. The following year Triumph opened a new plant in Thailand and again in 2006 opened further facilities in Thailand and have expressed plans to build an engine plant in South-East Asia. Recent years have seen the British marque introduce a wide range of models and the latest 2007 sales figures credit Triumph as the seventh biggest seller in the Australian marketplace with more than double the sales volume recorded by Ducati. Triumph through the years in images - Images 1 - Images 2 - Images 3