Triumph Engineering Co. Ltd was a British manufacturer of motorcycles and was originally based in Coventry and then moved to Solihull at Meriden. Towards the end of the company’s tenure in the 1980s, a new company gained the name rights and was known as Triumph Motorcycles Ltd.
The Man Behind – Siegfried Bettmann
The company was originally started by Siegfried Bettmann, who had migrated from the German Empire (Nuremberg) to Coventry in England in the year 1893. At the age of 20, he had founded his own company which involved the import and export of goods. His first product was the bicycle and later went on to import and sell sewing machines from Germany. He later went on to name the company as Triumph Cycle Company.
He along with Moritz Schulte, another native of Nuremberg, bought a site at Coventry in England to transform the small company into a manufacturing unit. They started producing Triumph branded bicycles which helped them to build another factory in Nuremberg.
Eventually, they decided to move on to making motorcycles, and in 1902 they produced their first bike which was a bicycle fitted with a Belgian Minerva engine. After selling about 500 motorcycles, they decided to design their own motorcycle, and by the end of 1905, they had sold over 250 of them.
The World War Period
The First World War gave a major boost to the company as production was switched to provide for the war efforts of the Allied. More than 30,000 motorcycles, including the iconic “Trusty Triumph” the Model H Roadster were supplied to the Allies during the war. After the war, Triumph Motorcycles was one of the leading producers of modern motorcycles.
Motorcycles were produced at the Coventry factory until the Second World War. The Coventry Blitz destroyed the entire city of Coventry during the war and production was stopped. Post the war, production of Triumph motorcycles restarted at a new factory in Meriden, Warwickshire in 1942, after recovering the machinery and tools from the devastation site.
Post-World War Era
The famous design developed before the war by Edward Turner, the Triumph Speed Twin, was produced in large numbers after the war. The Triumph Tiger 100 and the Speed Twin were the most sold Triumph Motorcycles at the time. These bikes were also shipped to the United States and were a huge hit there too. The Triumph brand gained tremendous publicity when Marlon Brando rode the 1950 Thunderbird 6T in the film, The Wild One. The name “Thunderbird” was originally created by Triumph which they later licensed to the Ford Motor Company.
The Iconic – Bonneville
In the year 1959, the tuned double carburetor version of the Triumph Tiger T110, the T120, came to be known as the iconic motorcycle of Triumph – The Bonneville. It was a bike which every person dreamt of owning in the 1960s featuring a parallel-twin four-stroke engine and was manufactured over three separate production units and over three generations. The Harley-Davidson developed their version of Bonneville and was known as the Harley-Davidson Sportster.
The Ups and Downs of Triumph
Triumph suffered huge losses in the early 1930s and went bankrupt and was acquired by the Standard Motor Company and was led by Jack Sangster, who eventually sold the concern to their rivals, the BSA. When the BSA went bankrupt in the 1970s, a company called Norton-Villers combined the operations and was known as the Norton-Villers Triumph (NVT).
Dennis Poore, the Chairman of NVT, in order to compete with the Japanese companies, proposed a consolidation plan which led to the shutting down of the Meriden plant. This plan would leave thousands of employees jobless and redundant. The workers of the Meriden factory staged a demonstration against the relocation which lasted for two years. With the help of the newly elected Labour government and loans formed, the Triumph Motorcycles (Meriden) Limited was formed, after the collapse of NVT.
The company started off well, with just two 750cc models of Tiger and Bonneville. They even developed a successful variant, known as the Silver Jubilee Bonneville T140J. The introduction of these bikes into the US market did not go so well due to the strong British Pound. This made the bikes fairly expensive and failed to sell in large numbers. In 1983, the dreaded incident happened. The debt-ridden Triumph Motorcycles (Meriden) Limited itself went bankrupt on 23rd August 1983.
Triumph Motorcycles (Hinckley) Ltd.
When triumph went into receivership, a property developer, John Bloor became interested in keeping the brand alive. He bought the manufacturing rights and the name and was initially named the Bonneville Coventry Ltd. Since Triumph had produced motorcycles since 1902, John Bloor ensured that the organization earned the title of the longest and continuous manufacturer of motorcycles. A licensing agreement ensured that the Triumph Bonneville was kept in production until the company launched a new range in 1990.
Triumph now produces a series of motorcycles reviving model names of the past, including the newly designed Bonneville twin. They now have 6 world-class factories across the globe with 2 of these factories based in Hinckley. Every Triumph bike starts its life’s journey at Hinckley where all the design work, prototype construction, and engineering takes place.
Here at Custom Elements, we have a great range of gear & accessories to match Triumph motorcycles ranging from Helmets, Riding Gear, Bags, Action Cameras, Bluetooth and more. Apart from this you can custom paint the helmet of a motorcycle to go along with the bike.
