A brief history of Triumph Motorcycles Ltd. May be old news

[ramseybella]

This has most likely been posted before?


A brief history of Triumph Motorcycles Ltd. Triumph UK is the largest surviving British motorcycle manufacturer. When the old Coventry Triumph Engineering Co Ltd went into receivership in the 1980's, Builder John Bloor bought Meriden motorcycles site & the name with manufacturing rights from the Official Receiver. The new Triumph Motocycle company was initially known as "Bonneville Coventry Ltd" And continued Coventry Triumphs record of motorcycle production since its humble beginings in 1902, making Triumph the world's oldest surviving motorcycle manufacturer.

The new Hinckley Triumph company's manufacturing plant and its designs were unable to compete against the Japanese early on, so Bloor decided against re-launching Triumph immediately. Initially, production of the old Meriden Bonneville was continued under licence by Les Harris of Racing Spares located in Newton Abbot Devon to bridge the gap between the end of the old Meriden Triumph motorbike company and the start of the new Hinckley Triumph.

John Bloor set to work assembling the new Triumph models, hiring several of the group's former designers to begin work on new models. The team visited Japan on a tour of its competitors' facilities and became determined to adopt Japanese manufacturing techniques and especially new-generation computer-controlled machinery. In 1985, Triumph purchased a first set of equipment to begin working, in secret, on its new prototype models. By 1987, the company had completed its first engine. In 1988, Bloor funded the building of a new factory at a 10-acre (40,000 m2) site in Hinckley Leicestershire Bloor put between £70million and £100million into the company between purchasing the brand and breaking even in 2000.

Triumph Model range
A new range of motorcycles using famous model names from the past such as Daytona, Trophy, Tiger arrived from 1991on. New 750 cc and 900 cc Triumph triples and 1000 cc and 1200 cc four-cylinder bikes all using a modular design to keep production costs low – an idea originally put forward, in air-cooled form, in the early 1970s by Meriden design team engineers Doug Hele & Bert Hopwood but not implemented by the then BSA-Triumph company under Edward Turner (Triumph Twin designer).
As sales grew the big four cylinder models were phased out of the line up and parallel twins and triples became the marketing and development focus of Triumph's marketing strategy. The new Triumph Motorcycle company also decided to exploit demand for 'retro' motorcycles with modern engineering. Something that the old Meriden directors missed when the "Triton" cafe racer first appeared at cafe bars such as the Ace Cafe on the North Circular London & Dutchies Cafe Smithdown Road Liverpool in the early sixties. The Triton was a modified Café racer motorcycle. The name derives from a contraction of Triumph and Norton the two brands of motorcycle combined.
The intention was to combine the best elements of each marque to give a superior bike to either. The usual practice was to take the Triumph Bonnie' parallel twin engine and use it to replace the engine in a Norton Featherbed framed motorcycle that was regarded as the best handling motorcycle of the day. The Triumph Bonnevilles engine that already had twin Amal concentric carburettors was a popular engine choice. This engine, as well as other Triumph twin-cylinder engines, gave good performance and reliability and could be easily tuned for greater power by the addition of high-profile E3134 camshafts high compression Hepolite pistons and twin Amal carburettors or Wal Phillips fuel injectors amongst the more common power contributing modifications. There was also a Rickman Weslake 8 valve head available for the Triumph Twin. A whole new supply industry grew out of the demand for a Retro-racer such as the Triton cafe racer and names such as Wassell, Bob Joyner cams & spares, Norman Hyde (Hyde Harrier) Boyer (Electronic Ignition) , Dave Degens (Dresda Triton) grew with the popularity of the now famous "Boy racer" Triton 'Street fighter'.
A styling excercise with the Triumph Thunderbird harked back to the Craig Vetter designed BSA Rocket 3 engined X75 Hurricane of 1972.  865 cc versions of the Hinckley Triumph Bonneville and Thruxton Bonneville look and sound original but internally they have modern valves and counter balance shafts to eradicate vibration problems synonomous with the old Meriden Bonnevilles.
Another accessory Industry flourished and companies such as www.triumph-online.co.uk  moto-twin, Jenks Bolts, Sprint Manufacturing, British Customs.com, newbonneville.com, & Triumphant, rallied to the demand for quality parts & accessories for the New HinckleyTriumphs.


Export success
At the same time as production capacity increased, John Bloor established a new network of export distributors. He has previously created two subsidiary companies, Triumph Deutschland GmbH and Triumph France SA. In 1994 Bloor created Triumph Motorcycles America Ltd.

Triumph Factory fire
At 21.00 on 15 March 2002, as the company was preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary as a motorcycle maker, its main factory was destroyed by a fire which began at the rear of the facility. At the height of the blaze over 100 firefighters were tackling the fire which destroyed most of the manufacturing capacity.
Nevertheless, the company, which by then employed more than 650, quickly rebuilt the facility and returned to production by September that year. Furthermore, in 2003, Triumph opened a new manufacturing facility in Thailand. An assembly and painting facility in Thailand was opened in 2006 by Prince Andrew In September 2008, Triumph announced that they were expanding their Thailand factory to increase capacity to over 130,000 motorcycles.

Future
The Triumph Group announced sales of 37,400 units in the financial year ending 30 June 2006. This represented a growth of 18% over the 31,600 produced in 2005. Company turnover (revenues) rose 13% to £200 million ($370 million), but net profit remained static at around £10.3 million due to recent investment in production facilities.
On 21 July 2008, Triumph held a Global Dealer Conference where new models for 2009 were launched, including the official announcement of the parallel twin-cylinder Triumph Thunderbird 1600
The Daily Telegraph business pages of 4 June 2009, reported Lord Digby Jones the former Minister of State for Trade, becoming chairman of Triumph motorcycles (Hinckley) Ltd as well as announcing the new 1600 cc Triumph Thunderbird 1600 twin cylinder model and Chief executive, Tue Mantoni's 'cautious' general market outlook for 2009 given the prevailing global economic downturn and despite a 19% rise in sales.