The company began in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann emigrated to Coventry in England from Nuremberg, part of the German Empire. In 1884 aged 20, Bettmann founded his own company, the S. Bettmann & Co. Import Export Agency, in London. Bettmann's original products were bicycles, which the company bought and then sold under its own brand name. Bettmann also distributed sewing machines imported from Germany. 1886 In 1886, Bettmann sought a more universal name, and the company became known as the Triumph Cycle Company. A year later, the company registered as the New Triumph Co. Ltd., now with financial backing from the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company. In that year, Bettmann was joined by another Nuremberg native, Moritz Schulte. 1888 Schulte encouraged Bettmann to transform Triumph into a manufacturing company, and in 1888 Bettmann purchased a site in Coventry using money lent by his and Schulte's families. The company began producing the first Triumph-branded bicycles in 1889. In 1896 Triumph opened a factory in Nuremberg for cycle production in Bettman's native city. 1898 In 1898, Triumph decided to extend its own production to include motorcycles and by 1902, the company had produced its first motorcycle - a bicycle fitted with a Belgian Minerva engine. In 1903, as its motorcycle sales topped 500, Triumph opened motorcycle production at its unit in Germany. During its first few years producing motorcycles, the company based its designs on those of other manufacturers. In 1904, Triumph began building motorcycles based on its own designs and in 1905 produced its first completely in-house designed motorcycle. By the end of that year, the company had produced more than 250 of that design. 1907 In 1907, after the company opened a larger plant, production reached 1,000 machines. Triumph had also launched a second, lower-end brand, Gloria, produced in the company's original plant. 1915 Model H, the "Trusty Triumph", 57000 were made between 1915 and 1923 Confusion between motorcycles produced by the Coventry and Nuremberg Triumph companies led to the latter's products being renamed Orial for certain export markets. However there was already an Orial company in France so the Nuremberg motorcycles were renamed again as "TWN", standing for Triumph Werke Nürnberg. World War I 1914-1918 The outbreak of World War I proved a boost for the company as production was switched to support the Allied war effort. More than 30,000 motorcycles - among them the Model H Roadster also known as the "Trusty Triumph," often cited as the first modern motorcycle - were supplied to the Allies. 1920 Bettmann and Schulte fell out after the war, with Schulte wishing to replace bicycle production with cars. Schulte left the company, but in the 1920s Triumph purchased the former Hillman car factory in Coventry and produced a saloon car in 1923 under the name of the Triumph Motor Company. Harry Ricardo produced an engine for their latest motorbike. 1924 By the mid-1920s Triumph had grown into one of Britain's leading motorcycle and car makers, with a 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) plant capable of producing up to 30,000 motorcycles and cars each year. Triumph also found its bikes in high demand overseas, and export sales became a primary source of the company's revenues, although for the United States, Triumph models were manufactured under license. The company found its first automotive success with the debut of the Super Seven car in 1928. Shortly after, the Super Eight was born. 1930s When the Great Depression hit in 1929, Triumph spun off its German subsidiary as a separate, independently owned company, which became part of the Triumph-Adler Company. The Nuremberg firm continued to manufacture motorcycles as TWN (Triumph Werke Nürnberg) until 1957. In 1932, Triumph sold off another part of the company, its bicycle manufacturing facility to Raleigh. By then, Triumph had been struggling financially, and Bettmann had been forced out of the chairman's spot. He retired completely in 1933. 1936 In 1936, the company's two components became separate companies. Triumph always struggled to make a profit from cars, and after going bankrupt in 1939 was acquired by the Standard Motor Company. The motorcycle operations fared better, having been acquired in 1936 by Jack Sangster, who also owned the rival Ariel motorcycle company. That same year, the company began its first exports to the United States, which quickly grew into the company's single most important market. Sangster's formed the Triumph Engineering Co Ltd largely led by ex-Ariel employees, including Edward Turner who designed the 500 cc 5T Speed Twin - released in September 1937, and the basis for all Triumph twins until the 1980s. Contrary to popular belief, however, this was not Triumph's first parallel twin. This honour falls to the Val Page designed, but unpopular, 6/1. After Turner arrived, in his usual brusque manner, the 6/1 was dropped, later to be replaced with Turner's design. The 6/1 engine later resurfaced, somewhat modified, as the BSA A10. In 1939 the 500 cc Tiger T100, capable of 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), was released, and then the war began. World War II 1939-1945 Motorcycles were produced at Coventry until World War II. The town of Coventry was virtually destroyed in the Coventry Blitz (7 September 1940 to May, 1941). Tooling and machinery was recovered from the site of the devastation and production restarted at the new plant at Meriden, West Midlands in 1942. Post-war era The Triumph Speed Twin designed by Edward Turner before the war was produced in large numbers after the war. Efforts to settle the lend-lease debts caused nearly 70% of Triumphs post war production to be shipped to the United States. Post War, the Speed Twin and Triumph Tiger 100 were available with a sprung rear hub, Triumph's first attempt at a rear suspension. 1950 Triumph Speed twin privateers put wartime surplus alloy barrels on their Tiger 100 racers, and won races, inspiring the Triumph GP model. By 1950 the supply of barrels was exhausted, and the GP model was dropped. The American market applied considerable pressure to reverse this backward step, and a die cast close finned alloy barrel was made available. The alloy head made the valve noise more obvious, so ramp type cams were introduced for alloy head models to reduce the noise. Another motorcycle based on the wartime generator engine was the 499 cc TR5 Trophy Twin, also introduced at the 1948 Motor Cycle Show. It used a single carburettor, low compression version of the Grand Prix engine. Britain won the prestigious 1948 International Six Days Trial. The Triumph works team had finished unpenalised. One team member, Allan Jefferies, had been riding what amounted to a prototype version. To satisfy the American appetite for motorcycles suited to long distance riding, Turner built a 650 cc version of the Speed Twin design. The new bike was named the Thunderbird (A name Triumph would later license to the Ford Motor Company for use on a car). Only one year after the Thunderbird was introduced a hot rodder in Southern California mated the 650 Thunderbird with a twin carb head originally intended for GP racing and named the new creation the Wonderbird. That 650 cc motor, designed in 1939, held the world's absolute speed record for motorcycles from 1955 until 1970. 1953 The Triumph brand received considerable publicity in the United States when Marlon Brando rode a 1950 Thunderbird 6T in the 1953 motion picture, The Wild One. The Triumph Motorcycle concern was sold to their rivals BSA by Sangster in 1951. This sale included Sangster becoming a member of the BSA board. Sangster was to rise to the position of Chairman of the BSA Group in 1956. The production 650 cc Thunderbird (6T) was a low compression tourer, and the 500 cc Tiger 100 was the performance bike. That changed in 1954, with the change to swing arm frames, and the release of the alloy head 650 cc Tiger 110, eclipsing the 500 cc Tiger 100 as the performance model. 1959 Triumph Tiger 100In 1959, the T120, a tuned double carburettor version of the Triumph Tiger T110, came to be called the Bonneville. As Triumph and other marques gained market share, Harley became aware that their 1 litre-plus bikes were not as sporty as the modern rider would like, resulting in a shrinking share of the market. The Triumphs were models for a new, "small" Harley Davidson as a result: the now-fabled Sportster, which started out as Harley's version of a Triumph Bonneville. With its anachronistic V-twin, the Sportster was no match for the Bonneville, but it proved a solid competitor in US sales and eventually also in longevity.[citation needed] 1960 In the 1960s, despite internal opposition from those who felt that it would dilute the macho image of the brand, Triumph produced two scooters; the Triumph Tina, a small and low performance 2-stroke scooter of around 100 cc with automatic clutch and a handlebar carry basket, and the Triumph Tigress, a more powerful scooter available with either a 175 cc 2-stroke single or a 250 cc 4-stroke twin engine for the enthusiast. 1962 In 1962, the last year of the "pre-unit" models, Triumph used a frame with twin front down-tubes, but returned to a traditional Triumph single front down tube for the unit construction models that followed. The twin down tube, or duplex frame, was used on the 650 twins, as a result of frame fractures on the Bonneville. Introduced in 1959, for the 1960 model year, it soon needed strengthening, and was dropped in 1962, with the advent of the unit engines for the 650 range. The 3TA was the first unit construction twin, soon followed by the short-stroke, 490 cc "500" range. Continued on Page 2, see below. |
| Earliest known Triumph Motorcycle Logo (1902). Possibly made of pot metal or a cloth patch. |
| How this logo may look, if, assembled using today's technology. |
| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Engineering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Motorcycles_Ltd Triumph Motorcycles Limited |
| Computer Graphics by JHLamastus |
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| How this logo may look, if, assembled using today's technology and in colour. |
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