Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

which he had tuned to obtain the maximum performance he needed for high-speed trips 10 London with his wife for even ings in town. The . new machine, to which he gave the name Speed Twin, was introduced in 1938 and it wa s at once a sensational success. Production costs were similar to those of the Tiger singles, the sell in g price was attractive to th e customer and orders poured in. The Speed Twin was the fo undatio n upon which was buill th e most successful company in the U .K. motorcycle industry. In the following year Turner produced a no the r winner, a higherperformance version named the Tiger 100 with handsome black and silver finish, and each machine had a performance certificate. II was during this period that Turner suffered a dreadful persona l disaster . He had invited two friends with their wives for a weekend at his home near Coventry a nd while the young Mrs . T urner took the ladies into town , h e showed th e men around the fact ory. After d rivi ng them back to his h ou se he became concerned that his wife and co m panions had not returned after a considerable ti me and he thought th ere might have been so me tro uble with th e car. He d rove back to wards Coventry to look . for them a nd he did not have 10 go very far. There had been a head-on crash between a car and a tru ck. The ca r was his wife's and the three occupants were killed. Sangster took him away out of England for a while an d when they returned Turner bu ri ed his grief in long hours of work a t th e p lant. E.T., as he became known , and which abbreviation I will now use, hada21 cubic-inch OHV model read y for introduction in 1939, but w ith the war clouds gathering it was suspended when the government demanded th e entire output of the factory for military services. The bright colors of th e Tiger 100 and Speed Twin changed 10 dull grey. E.T. then turned his attention to designing lighter we ight military machines with 30 cubic-inch side-valve and 21 cubic-inch overheadvalve engines. The side-valve type began product ion towards the end of 1939 and many were delivered in the " llowing months. The smaller model fo d isplayed the fenility of its designer's brain. It was an ultra-Iightweight with compact unit construction of engine and gearbox, small wheels, and, for the first time, a crankshaftmo u n ted alternator for lighting. So successfu l was this machine in test evaluation by the m ili tary authorities that its specification was standarized by the government fo r prod uction by other manufacture rs a lso. In addition to maximum ou tput of motorcycles, the Triumph factory was making aircraft components, tank Turner and racer Bernard Hargreaves, w inner of the 1953 Clubman' s TT race , Isle of Man, on a Tiger 1 00 Triumph, averaging 82.45 mph. You.ng Edward T~rne.r when he was appointed Chief ·Develo pm ent Engineer at the Anel factory, where he designed the Ariel Square Four. tracks, vehicle pans a nd a winch powered by the 30 cu bic-i nch twin-cyli nder engine. The first productio n quantity of the new miHtary model was bein g co m pleted in September 1940 _ when German bombers h i t Coventry with a heavy raid around midnight, destroying m uch of the city center and wrecking the T rium p h fac tory. Sa lvaging whatever equipment cou ld be repaired, efforts were made to resume manufacture of components. but further raids put an end to the history of the Triumph association with Coventry and E.T . moved the activities to an old foundry building 10 miles away in Warwick. Within a few weeks pans were being made for military machines, and in june 1941 production of a 21 cubic-inch model com m enced. The engine was a modified version of th e Tiger 80 single-cyl inder unit . Me anwhile, work staned on building a n ew factory at Mer iden, and by March 1942 some machine 100is wer e installed and in operation . Manufacture of th e military model went ahead at Meriden th e same year, but not under the direction of E.T. For so me reason, and probably not unconnected with the frequent clash of th eir different personalities, he h ad a serious quarrel with Sangster and resigned from th e compan y. The quiet, iritrovened Sangster was th e exact opposite of E.T. but with eq ua l det ermination and n ever prepared to ba ck down, a n d wh en h e learn ed that E.T. h ad joined the riv al BSA compan y as Chief Designer he started th e mo ve whi ch would br ing him ba ck . II was not d i££icult 10 discover th at E.T. had star ted 10 de sign a military model with a 30-cubic in ch side-valve engine a n d it was planned 10 commen ce production in three m onths. Instructions were given by Sangster 10 designer Ben Hopwood (wh o had joined T riumph with E.T. ) that the prototype of a similar model must be ready for demonstrati on in two months. Hopwood and his team did the ta sk in seven weeks and in February 1943 Sangster h osted ' a pres s launching at the Grosvenor hotel in London where the m achin e was shown and was ridden by the pressmen. The introduction of the BSA many mon ths later was a non-event, and as Sangster had expected, E.T. was soon back with Triumph where he was rei nstated as Managing Director. H e stayed there for the next 21 years, and organized the Meriden Iactory into a highly-efficient profitmaking plant. When the production o f m ilitary machines en ded, Triumph had mad e more than 49.000 a nd th e co m pa n y was ready for th e dem ands of the civilian market. The Speed Twin a n d Tige r 100 wer e soon back in bu siness. My first m eeti ng with E.T. was in Ma rch 1946 when, wearing army uniform for th e la st time, I was in terviewed by h im for the position of roadman, My pre-war years in the industry with the R udge factory may have he lped beat the competitors for the job, bu t I threw in the story o f m y Tiger 100 ri de at St . Nazaire in j une 1940. I was a m o ng the remnants o f the British army hoping 10 get out of France after Du n kir k and my unit arrived at the harbor during heavy daylight bombing. Waiting for our turn to be taken out to the Cunard liner Lancastria became unpleasant and two of us decided that life would be safer on th e airfi eld which wa s crowded with abandoned vehicles and therefore unlikely to be destroyed . From the many motorcycles we chose a co u p le of Tigers a n d went o n a recce ride, and a while later we sa w th e smoke rising from the bay when the Lancastria was hit. She went down ver y quickl y and took th ousands with her. E.T. recalled some of hi s ex pe rien ces at sea in 1918 a nd th en welcomed m e aboard his Triumph ship. He h as been described by so me of his co n temporaries as ego tistica l, arro ga n t, self-opinionated a nd ruthless in his d eterm ination but all agreed th at-h e wa s th e most brilliam engi nee r th e industry ever had. In th e later yea rs of a personal life whi ch wa s only br iefl y happy, he mell owed a n d reveal ed th e cha r m which wa s h idden be ne a th th e Churchillian typ e o f per sonalit y. I co u n t m yself a s privileged to hav e h ad his h elp a n d fr iendship through . o u t th e years o f o u r associa tion . . In 1946 and for a long time afterwards. the demand for Triumph mach i nes was far greater than could be met. but E.T. w isely stu died the potential i n markets beyond Britain , and the U .S.A. in panicular. H alf of the Meriden output was soo n to be sent overseas and most of th is went 10 johnson Motors of Pasadena, California , owned by Bill johnson, who wa s a lawyer and was ver y fond of motorcycles. H e and his associate Wilbur Cedar built up a fin e business for Triumph and I shall long re member the week I had wi th them in Pasadena. At the Triumph dealer convention I met Catalina Grand Prix winner Bud Ek ins of Los Angeles, California , and . greatly en jo yed an afternoon riding with him in the hi lls. H e was iny guest in England several times and through him I m et Steve McQueen when the film The G reat Escape wa s being mad e. • Part 2 .next week 21

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