Triumph/BSA Triples - CLASSICS REMEMBERED

Technical Editor Kevin Cameron takes a look back at the classic motorcycles of yesterday

The first Triumph T150 Trident.By meriden.triumph (Flickr: T150 Triumph Trident) via Wikimedia Commons

There are two stories that center on these well-loved Triples. One is the lamentable story of corporate incompetence that marched inevitably toward collapse of the British motorcycle industry. The other is more optimistic, relating how the virtues of low production cost and simplicity, espoused by Edward Turner since the Speed Twin of 1936, could be combined with the long-frustrated ambitions of progressive engineers. The result was a workable but far from optimum 750 Triple whose voice was music and whose sporting qualities were briefly able (1970-’71) to compete with the best in the world.

Turner had toured the Japanese industry in 1960, ordering the late Don Brown to gather in California for his personal testing as many Japanese motorcycle types as he could find. Turner was therefore fully aware that Japan, starting fresh after a terrible war with all-new and highly cost-efficient production methods, was filling the world market from the bottom up with well-made, fully tested motorbikes and motorcycles.

Yet Triumph and associated BSA and Ariel not only failed to prepare any timely answer to Japan, they continued to dump money into dreadful, unworkable scooters and small novelty vehicles. And rather than keeping essential exports flowing by putting motorcycle people in charge of planning, they adopted what was then called "American-style management." The central credo of this system was that the less a company's managers know about their product, how it is made, and how it is promoted, the more unbiased and effective their purely business decisions would be. No long range planning existed, and decisions to produce novelties were made in haste, forcing untested designs straight into production. Think of the BSA 'Dandy' and 'Beeza', the later 'Beagle, Triumph's 'Tina' and 'Tigress', Ariel's 'Pixie', and the 3-wheeler of 1970. Millions of pounds were wasted in this way on untested products rushed into production, which sold in small numbers, gave poor account of themselves, and were "quietly withdrawn." The idea was correct; to offer convenient, low-priced two-wheeled transportation to the market as the Italians (Lambretta, Vespa), French (Solex) and Japanese (Honda step-throughs) were so successfully doing.

Lack of proper testing destroyed reputation, as when BSA had to spend eighty thousand pounds to correct their “rogue spark” problem. As told to me by Don Brown, 4000 1966 BSA twins arrived in the US in such dreadful shape that they had to be returned to England for re-manufacture. This reveals that testing saves money and supports the brand. It is not a waste, a frill, an optional extra.

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Meanwhile, the designs paying for all this 'playing-at-silly-buggers' were the 'export twins' of the postwar years – whose engines had come into being as 500 parallel twins, then been enlarged in stages, mainly to meet US market demand for more power. Each time their pistons were made bigger, the only way (short of adopting balance shafts) of reducing their up-and-down shaking force was to add yet more crank counterweight, which created fore-and-aft shaking equal to the reduction in vertical shaking. When in 1973 the venerable Triumph twin reached 750-cc, they were forced to balance 85% of its reciprocating weight. These engines had no future. While some continued to praise the manly effects of numb butt and fingers, many turned to Honda's stunning (and naturally smoother) CB750 four at $1495.

Britain desperately needed an export machine with substantial development potential – the very thing the twins lacked. Engineers repeatedly proposed solutions but the new business geniuses said change was risky – and too expensive. The Twins soldiered on.

Veteran British bike engineer Bert Hopwood noted that in late 1961 there had been “a ready-made plan for a 750 triple cylinder motorcycle.” Every account of these events records that ‘one evening late in 1963, after all had gone home, Bert Hopwood and Doug Hele sat in Heel’s office and laid out what would become the 750 Trident.’ Bear in mind those years would pass before the first such machine would roll from the assembly building.

The heart of Turner’s original 500-cc Speed Twin had been simplicity, cost control, and the ability to fit into existing single-plane chassis. Those precepts were honored by Hopwood and Hele, as follows;

A British twin’s crankcase was roughly two hemispheres enclosing a two-bearing, 360-degree crankshaft. What the two men did was to separate those traditional aluminum hemispheres by just enough to insert a “spacer” carrying two plain main bearings with a 3rd crankpin between them. This bolted-together 3-piece crankcase was then stiffened by a one-piece cylinder casting and a one-piece head. Despite Hopwood’s dislike of the Triumph twin’s “clatter box” gear-driven cams, the planned Triple retained them. Likewise, despite 1936 being the last year in which a pushrod machine won a TT, the Twin’s pushrod valve operation was likewise retained. As with late twins, engine and gearbox were in-unit. Change, they had been told over and again, is expensive.

BSA Rocket 3.By TR001 (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons

The 67 x 70-mm = 740.4-cc prototype 12 months later made 58-hp @ 7250 (beep = 140-psi). Sales response was mixed. We were all delighted that England had at last done something. But why did it have to come with those dreadful Buck Rogers “three-finger” exhaust pipes? Our dealership’s basement storeroom filled up with them as customers sought alternatives. The goal of styling appeared to be to give an impression of great weight, not sporting agility.

Triumph's 500 twins had for years been fundamental to US racing because of the tempting array of hi-pop parts offered for it at affordable prices. It was the small-block Chevy of its era. When Meriden pushed hard with development they won the Daytona 200 in 1966 (Buddy Elmore) and '67 (the late Gary Nixon), at the end making just over 48-hp. Harley came back with a version of their flathead KR750 that was air flowed inside and out, suddenly up ten hop on the competition. In 1968 the highest-finishing Triumph was Elmore's, in 6th, behind a Harley, two little Yamaha 350s, a second Harley, and a Suzuki 500. The one-word name for Triumph's situation? Obsolescence!

The new AMA Competition Committee met in December 1968, hearing a proposal from Triumph to raise the OHV displacement limit to 650. Harley bid that up to 750, and the measure passed, effective 1970. Suddenly the door was open…to what? Would Harley come with an OHV as perfected as its KR? Could Honda slip in a racing rework of their anticipated CB750? Triumph now had to act; they had motive and opportunity – now all they needed was the means.

1969 brought another Daytona disaster – the top-finishing Triumph was Gary Nixon’s 500 – in ninth. Ahead of him it was all Harley KRs and the dreaded two-strokes (they would remain limited to 500-cc until 1972, but in the meantime the Yamahas rubbed salt in the four-stroke wound by being dinky little 350s, less than half the displacement of the four-strokes).

Dick Mann.Dave Friedman/Don Emde Collection

We know the history. Honda came in 1970 with trick mag crankcase CB750s, mostly ridden by GP guys who were confidently expected to fill the podium. But no – at the finish it was Dick Mann, managing his Honda's engine and tires exactly right. Gene Romero and Don Castro were 2nd and 3rd on beautiful factory Triumph Triples. The highest-finishing Harley was that of Walt Fulton, Jr., in 6th. Turn again is fair play.`

Now came the tolling of the bell, quietly at first. For 1971 Dick Mann was now on a factory BSA Triple, and again, he was “just insurance”, as top men from the European scene, like Mike Hailwood and Paul Smart, were expected to win. Offered a choice, Mann chose the iron brake rotors. Given a high rev limit, he chose a lower one he thought would finish. Pop. Blammo. The higher-tuned bikes stopped running. Look! It’s Dick Mann! Where did he come from? It was British Triples 1-2-3, Mann, Romero, Don Emde.

Before we bog out in ‘what might have been’, here’s what was. In Q3 of that year, BSA moved about 6300 units. But in Q1 1972 the number was 202. Proportionally, that’s like having your heart rate drop from 72 to just 2.3 beats per minute. Clinical death.

More units would be built (as Triumphs, but with the inclined cylinders of the BSA version), but Tri/BSA had pushed the stone as far up the hill as they could before it crushed them. It was touching – they had consumed the last of their strength to achieve that 1971 Daytona win.

Many today look back upon the Triples with reverence or love. The forge-and-twist 120-degree crank gave inherent balance but only the engine’s not inconsiderable mass protected the rider from its rocking couple. Do ten curls morning and evening with a Trident crankshaft and you’ll soon have biceps all will admire. The more cylinders there are, the more propulsive smoothness the rider feels. Countless vintage races have been won by restored and extensively tuned examples. There’s so much that could be said.

Edward Turner’s last project was the SOHC 350 twin Bandit/Fury. There was a promotional bare engine on a stand at our dealer show and I decided to look inside. Pulling off a cover with the Phillips driver on my pocket knife, I saw it was empty. When the cost analysts worked through its parts list, they found it had to sell at twice what Honda was asking for their simple-as-a-shovel CB350 twin. Japan had achieved both design-for-manufacturing and low-cost production. England, carrying its honored load of tradition, could not.

So, if we please, we can look upon those Triples as a glorious sword, handed up from dark waters by a mysterious hand that then sank from view and was thereafter seen no more.

When today you hear the music of modern Triples from Bloor/Triumph or Yamaha, think back to that day of glory in March 1971. Dick Mann. BSA. The idea of a high-performance modern British machine with a future.

After that, the dinky Yamaha twins, less than half the displacement of their competition, dominated Daytona 1-2-3 in both 1972 and 1973. The two-stroke era had begun.

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