VOL. 56 ISSUE 8 FEBRUARY 26, 2019 P73
But now Triumph has gone back
to the future in making it an even
dozen different variants in its 2019
Bonneville lineup, with the unveiling
last December of an all-new addition
to its range of Bloor-era Bonnevilles.
To mark the 80th anniversary of
the model, which essentially in-
vented not only Triumph's trademark
design format, but indeed what
came to typify the UBM/Universal
British Motorcycle in the UK indus-
try's post-WWII golden era (until
the Japanese spoilled the party)
Triumph has revived the Speed Twin
designation to attach to a model
that gives its customers more for
less in performance vs. price.
While the original Triumph Speed
Twin initially produced in 1938 as
the first-ever parallel-twin in the
company's lineup brought new lev-
els of performance and handling to
the 500cc category—back then, the
premium capacity class in British
biking—the new 2019 model of the
same name strives to do the same
via a clever combination of parts bin
engineering coupled with empirical
development, as expressed via a
total of 80 new components fitted
to the bike.
Check out Triumph's ever-growing
Bonneville family of Modern Clas-
sics, and until now you'd have found
11 different versions currently avail-
able of the British manufacturer's
iconic parallel-twin range, which
was resurrected back in 2000 by
company owner John Bloor.
Since then, no fewer than
313,994 examples of the born-
again Bonneville have been pro-
duced, making up around 40 per-
cent in any given year of Triumph's
production at its two factories in
the UK, and three in Thailand. So
that makes it a key ingredient in
the modern day success story that
Triumph Motorcycles represents.
E S T
The latest in a
very long line,
the Speed Twin is
lighter and faster
than ever before
but still retains
its unmistakable
character.
