- 2 days ago
Triumph died along with the British motorcycle industry in the 1970s, with last-gasps into the 1980s. Then John Bloor came along and breathed new life into the storied British brand. And it wasn't some half-hearted retro effort, the company jumped right into modern motorcycles. Now, the company is a Moto2 engine supplier, has a full high-performance retro line, a collection of sporting streetbikes and the world's largest-displacement cruiser. It's even making 450 and 250cc motocrossers! Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about the resurgence and evolution of Triumph from the 1990s to the present.
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SportsTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer. I'm with Kevin Cameron, our technical editor.
00:00:06Our episode this week is on Triumph Motorcycles, the revival of Triumph Motorcycles under John Bloor.
00:00:14A veritable, I don't know, zombie. They were kind of making bikes for a while.
00:00:18There was a fella making, I don't know, Bonnevilles of some kind.
00:00:24And using up old parts and making some new ones.
00:00:27But John Bloor did it from scratch. Had a reason, a passion, and a desire.
00:00:34That's usually the only reason you get into the motorcycle business.
00:00:38He called it good commercial business, though.
00:00:42Well, after he got it going.
00:00:46Yeah, I got to give him credit for having vision and sticking with it.
00:00:52So we'll get into that.
00:00:53Um, they were some of the first motorcycles I tested when I got into the motorcycle business myself.
00:01:00I was just rattling around on my RD400 Yamaha Daytona Special, which I totaled, as many kids did.
00:01:08This is why they, you can't find the nice ones now.
00:01:12Or you can, they're just a lot more money than they used to be.
00:01:15Uh, but yeah, Trophy 1200, first test bike I ever crashed.
00:01:19It was a magnificent big green motorcycle.
00:01:221200cc inline four.
00:01:24Fantastic amount of bottom end torque.
00:01:27I messed up, I messed up a downshift.
00:01:30I essentially fanned the clutch in second gear.
00:01:33I didn't get the first gear as I was going around a very slow corner.
00:01:36Fanned the clutch and extended the fork.
00:01:39It had a very soft fork and it extended and I rolled out and it went, er, er, er, clank.
00:01:47Off I went.
00:01:50It was one of, magnificently, it was one of three in the country at the time.
00:01:56Oh well.
00:01:59We fixed it.
00:02:02So what do you think, Kevin?
00:02:03Kevin, well, uh, first thing is to understand something about John Bloor, which is one of
00:02:12the things that I've taken away from this, uh, study, which is that he started this project
00:02:19in 1983 when he was 40 years old and he had a business, a house building business, and he
00:02:30made a great deal of money, having started as a plasterer's apprentice at age 17 and having
00:02:40an eye for the main chance, built his first house before he was 20.
00:02:48So it would appear that he made a lot of good decisions along the way because England was
00:02:55not exactly a stable business, um, environment in those days because so much of the value
00:03:04added industries such as aviation and shipbuilding and automobiles, motorcycles were disappearing.
00:03:16And when you read the stories of their disappearances, there are different reasons in every case.
00:03:23So it gives the impression that there was just widespread bad luck, which we don't believe.
00:03:32I recall, um, we used to watch, uh, football, you know, soccer matches on public television
00:03:39as a family back in the eighties.
00:03:42And, uh, there was a, they say it's commercial free, but it isn't commercial free.
00:03:49They do have, they have special commercials.
00:03:51And one of those was like the British trade, I don't know, British trade association or something.
00:03:57And it showed all this footage of molten metal being poured into molds and factories running.
00:04:04And it was, it was a commercial for Britain in about 1983, 1984.
00:04:08And it said, Britain is booming.
00:04:11And it went, had all this really exciting stuff.
00:04:13And my dad just started laughing.
00:04:16I'm like, what?
00:04:17And he's like, Britain is not booming.
00:04:19Yes.
00:04:20It was good.
00:04:22So that's the world.
00:04:24Britain is not booming.
00:04:25Yeah.
00:04:27So what happened of course, is that having all this money for any of us, if we came into
00:04:36a lot of money poses a problem, now what, well, kick back for the rest of your life, sipping
00:04:43margaritas.
00:04:45Um, well, that's a bore.
00:04:49So Laura went to look at the recently closed Triumph factory.
00:04:56He wasn't interested in it, but he was interested in the brand name and he laid out 200,000 pounds
00:05:04for it, wonderful, and began planning how he would bring the brand back in a new way.
00:05:17What would that new way be?
00:05:21Well, uh, he decided that he should take a few of his trusted lads with him and travel
00:05:31to Japan, much as Edward Turner had done in 1960, to see what they're up to over there.
00:05:38Why go to Japan?
00:05:40Because he felt that Japan had the best, uh, manufacturing base and could produce sophisticated
00:05:50products at low prices because of efficient manufacturing.
00:05:57So he went to Japan to see it and he took his people and they came back, uh, to the UK
00:06:05and he began to buy machine tools.
00:06:12Well, this is reminds me of, of another time, 1954, when Mr. Honda went to us and Europe to
00:06:23buy machine tools because Mr.
00:06:26Honda, like Mr.
00:06:27Bloor, believed that the future belonged to highly automated manufacturing at the lowest possible
00:06:39cost.
00:06:40Because what this does, aside from put traditional workmen out of a job, is it makes the product
00:06:49available to a wider population of potential buyers?
00:06:54Because if you're making a few hand-built
00:06:57models that sell for a million pounds, um, you might sell one or two to the Koenig's egg,
00:07:08um, Bugatti crowd, but it's not a business.
00:07:13Got to give Henry Ford credit, right?
00:07:15Yes, sir.
00:07:16Let's make that car.
00:07:17Because he had the same idea.
00:07:19Let's make that affordable enough for my employees to buy one.
00:07:22What do you know?
00:07:23Yes.
00:07:24And so it was decided to reject everything from the past.
00:07:31That is, they weren't going to say, well, we'll put a balancer on the twin and we'll, uh, we'll
00:07:39restyle the triple, but basically keep those things in production.
00:07:43No, because the whole thing had to be begun on a fresh and modernized basis, or the selling
00:07:55point prices for the various products would not be met.
00:08:00Now, in the beginning, uh, Britain's industrial revolution created a nation of skilled workers
00:08:11because so much of the work was of a manual nature.
00:08:16They began manufacturing all kinds of machines, steam engines, for example, ships,
00:08:23large numbers of skilled people in the U S they couldn't do that.
00:08:29So the industrial revolution in the U S took a different form right from the beginning.
00:08:35They said to themselves, these people, we don't have time to train them to become
00:08:41machinists and welders and fabricators.
00:08:44So we're going to build the skills into the production machines, mass production, Henry Ford.
00:08:51And so that was a completely different deal.
00:08:56What had happened in Britain was they hung on to craft production methods, or at least to
00:09:04enough of it to poison the rest of the operation, that their production cost was not declining
00:09:13with improvements in manufacturing technology.
00:09:16BSA, who had been regarded as having done pretty well by its employees, um, didn't see any
00:09:26alternative to cutting employee pay to meet price point, uh, triumphant BSA decided to build
00:09:37the fury slash bandit three 50 twin and they had it tooled, no product testing.
00:09:49And then the accountants knocked on the door, uh, guys want to run your eye over this?
00:09:58Oh, it's going to cost us twice.
00:10:03It's what Japan sells CB three 50 for.
00:10:08Oh, well, that's that then.
00:10:12And it wasn't too long before I saw in the back pages of one of the, of the British comics,
00:10:19as they used to call them, the weekly newspaper for the motorcycling industry, prototypes for
00:10:26fury and bandit were for sale cheap.
00:10:29Those would be some collector's items at any rate.
00:10:33Uh, the British industry had also spent a lot of money on trying to get on trends like scooters.
00:10:45The Italians made a huge success out of scooters, late fifties, early sixties, sold zillions of
00:10:52them.
00:10:52And British industry tried to make scooters and they had inadequate product testing.
00:11:00They weren't very well designed.
00:11:02Their drives locked up, their chassis bent.
00:11:06They were terrible.
00:11:08There was a product called the aerial pixie, which was a tilting wheel, uh, three wheeler.
00:11:15And this was supposed to just fit in like a glove with the current trend towards wacky out
00:11:26there, uh, lifestyle.
00:11:29And it went nowhere because it didn't work.
00:11:31So all this time they're bleeping capital.
00:11:36They're trying to keep their products marketable by making a 500 into a 650 into a six, 700 into
00:11:45a 750 into an eight 35 pistons getting bigger and bigger vibration, amplitudes increasing
00:11:52parts breaking off, unreliability, and then comes the, the great showdown, Triumph, Trident,
00:12:04Triumph PSA three cylinder, uh, which has a lovely sound versus Honda CB 750.
00:12:13CP 750 somehow outsold the Triumph triple 10 to one end of story.
00:12:26It's terribly sad because those of us who lived through that period, um, I was in a partner
00:12:35in a dealership.
00:12:36We had Kawasaki and Triumph and we saw it happening.
00:12:40We would receive shipments of what were called 250 Triumphs, which were BSAC-15s that had been
00:12:49nailed into their chassis.
00:12:51The only way you could get the engine bolts out in order to perform the warranty service,
00:12:57which was actually a final stage of manufacturing that had been neglected, was by using a drift
00:13:05pin and a large hammer.
00:13:06The engines didn't fit the chassis.
00:13:11Well, this is characteristic of when an industry is going to pieces.
00:13:18And Mr. Bloor was determined to have things that went smoothly.
00:13:25Parts that fit.
00:13:27A design that was thoroughly modern that people would want to buy.
00:13:31With no legacy of oil leaks, uh, bent transmission shafts, uh, poor stuff, sad, but true.
00:13:47In 1966, Don Brown told me in 1966, BSA had to send back to Britain 4,000 twins that had been
00:13:58so damaged in manufactured by outraged employees that they couldn't fix them in the usual way.
00:14:06Hiring some high school kids, giving them screwdrivers and having them perform the, uh, correctives.
00:14:13They had to be done.
00:14:14Yeah, Don.
00:14:15Had to be manufactured a second time.
00:14:18Yeah.
00:14:18Don Brown was, um, well, Don Brown was responsible at, at, uh, Triumph in America for the Bonneville name.
00:14:26Um, so Don had seen a lot.
00:14:29He was an apporter and he, in a big wig and he was active in the industry for a very long time.
00:14:35And, uh, used to do a, um, a newsletter that had a lot of interesting stuff in it.
00:14:39And coincidentally, I worked with his son who was a battalion chief in the fire department where I volunteer.
00:14:47Well, yeah, Don was really something.
00:14:51I heard those same stories and, um, uh, our, uh, great editor, Paul Dean, who worked, uh, for many, many years with us, was a, um, BSA dealer.
00:15:03And he, he, he, he once took his own BSA into the basement and remanufactured it himself so that he could have a near perfect BSA.
00:15:13But yeah, uh, handfuls of screws in the cases, uh, just thrown in many, uh, much lore about how they were, um, wrecking them on the line.
00:15:23But the whole thing, I mean, modern manufacturing, the new Triumph, it was, it was just modern, no hand fitting, no fettling, no filing, just parts that came in and you bolt them together.
00:15:38And, and that was it.
00:15:40Machine made parts feed the production line.
00:15:43It moves along slowly, uh, out the end comes a machine that starts and runs and passes the acceptance test.
00:15:52In the little shack where, uh, they can control the smoke.
00:15:56Yeah.
00:15:57There's a robot dyno in there.
00:15:58Yeah.
00:16:00It was, yeah.
00:16:01So it was interesting to see Triumph come back to the U.S. market.
00:16:05And I got to test those early bikes, uh, speed triple and, um, that trophy, 1200 four cylinder, you know, big sport tour with bags, giant fairing, pretty bulky, very soft suspension.
00:16:21But, um, man, beautifully torquey engine.
00:16:24The, the triples were really fun.
00:16:27Um, they were big, bulky and on the heavy side, but, uh, it was such a relief for them to be normal motorcycles.
00:16:36Yes.
00:16:37It really was like, they just acted like motorcycles.
00:16:40That was, that was really cool.
00:16:42One of the examples that was given was, uh, NSHU automatic machining centers, which produced the crankcases and cylinder heads.
00:16:53Uh, each line was supervised for each shift by two people.
00:16:59They didn't touch the machines.
00:17:03They didn't touch the parts.
00:17:05They were there to make sure that if a tool carousel needed another tool that wasn't there, they could load it.
00:17:12They were there to hit the red button if there were some kind of an emergency.
00:17:16And they produced bearing bores that were correctly dimensioned.
00:17:27Now, we all know the story of the Norton, uh, crankcases being bored by a man who used a piece of two by four with a shiny place in it from wedging it against the tool spindle.
00:17:41Where's my stick?
00:17:43Take the clearance out of the, out of the spindle bearing so it didn't shatter and make a, uh, a surface finish in the bearing that looked like pavement that's been prepared for the next layer.
00:17:58Just terrible.
00:18:00And of course, these NSHU machines, self-managing, uh, took care of the chips.
00:18:08The chips come out on a little conveyor belt and go into barrels for recycling.
00:18:15Um, there's no man, there's no stick.
00:18:20The dimensions are measured in process.
00:18:25So this is what, uh, Mr. Bloor meant by rejecting everything from the past and starting afresh.
00:18:36But there was a thing, uh, an underlying concept, which was not missing, but not emphasized.
00:18:46And this turned out to be the role of a fellow whose name I can't pronounce.
00:18:52And maybe it's Tui Mantoni.
00:18:54It looks like that.
00:18:56Yeah.
00:18:56Tui Mantoni.
00:18:57He was working for a, uh, um, consulting firm.
00:19:02He's a Dane.
00:19:04And quite a young man when this analysis began.
00:19:08Quite a young man.
00:19:10Oh, yeah.
00:19:11And what he had was a penetrating analysis of this effort to produce a new Triumph motorcycle.
00:19:21He said, get rid of the big fours.
00:19:24Well, yeah, this is, yeah, this is.
00:19:26Build twins and triples because they have identity.
00:19:30Now he knew all about identity marketing.
00:19:33Harley did not know about it until their Minneapolis ad firm sort of pushed their face into it.
00:19:41Look, you have something that is a thousand times better than the best imaginable Nova project you could conceive of.
00:19:53You have the American nationalist motorcycle.
00:19:58Well, uh, twins and triples.
00:20:02The triples have that unique musical sound.
00:20:05I've never understood why it is so attractive.
00:20:10The twins are attractive because Triumph made so many twins beginning in 1936.
00:20:17It's really important to wind back to the original bike of the rebirth and say, here are these kind of big, chunky, reliable things.
00:20:27They had some character.
00:20:29It was, it was good.
00:20:30They made an impression and everybody said, well, where's, how come you don't have a Bonneville?
00:20:36Yeah.
00:20:37And at the time that, you know, all the people I talked to at Triumph, I'm standing in Triumph headquarters.
00:20:43No, we, the, the strategies, no, we're going to compete, compete head to head with the Japanese in every category.
00:20:53Ouch.
00:20:54That costs a lot of money.
00:20:55So, and the, the, the thing was, is like time after time, TT 600.
00:21:03Okay.
00:21:03Yeah.
00:21:04Not, not bad, but like two years behind 8%, 5% behind every time a new one came out.
00:21:12And then they said, well, let's make this Daytona 600.
00:21:16That was an evolution.
00:21:19Uh, also not quite there.
00:21:21Pretty good, but not, you know, not really like, Hey, I want to go win a national championship.
00:21:25Which was kind of the point of all the 600s at the time.
00:21:28And whether you were going to go win a national championship or not, you wanted the bike that, you wanted the 600 that can do 172 miles an hour.
00:21:35Yes.
00:21:36It's sort of how we were being marketed to and what, what the customer was buying.
00:21:40You know, 20,000 Honda CBR 600s, 20,000 G6R 600s a year in the United States.
00:21:49Good going, guys.
00:21:49Good going.
00:21:50Crazy money.
00:21:51Yep.
00:21:51And phenomenal motorcycles.
00:21:52So, but, you know, then they said, well, let's, we'll just make it a 650.
00:21:57So they got a Daytona 650 and it was pretty darn good.
00:22:00Yeah.
00:22:00Um, the nine five five triple was a big transition.
00:22:04Big step.
00:22:05Yes.
00:22:06Huge step because it, you know, they, they modernized the engine.
00:22:10They made it lighter.
00:22:11Um, you pointed out, you know, cause worth influence.
00:22:15So, but the strategy was, we're going to take on the Japanese in every category.
00:22:19They, they had a hyper bike.
00:22:21They had like a CBR 1100 blackbird fighter.
00:22:24You know, they were going to go a hundred, 200 miles an hour, just like a Hayabusa.
00:22:28They had that bike in process and they were struggling to make all of this stuff happen.
00:22:35And Tui Mantoni came in and said, huh, you have an identity, twins and triples, use it, stop, get off that treadmill.
00:22:48You have a business in a way that is your own.
00:22:51You have triumph.
00:22:52They came out in 2001 with the, um, with the Bonneville and you were never going to make the old guys happy.
00:23:00They were all pissed about the kick in the exhaust pipe instead of it having a straight going into the sausage.
00:23:06They, they kicked it up.
00:23:07So the thing would have cornering clearance.
00:23:08And in fact, the Bonneville interestingly was in a lot of ways, less triumph than the Kawasaki W650 at the time.
00:23:18The W650 with the bevel, uh, driven overhead cam was so remarkably like a Bonneville.
00:23:27It was, it sounded great.
00:23:29It, it, it actually nailed the Bonneville more than the Bonneville did.
00:23:33The Bonneville was a really nice, more modern interpretation of triumph's own Bonneville.
00:23:39But there it was in 2001 and instant hit and, uh, sold and sold.
00:23:44And on that trip, I went to England to test ride that motorcycle when it debuted.
00:23:50And, uh, we, we stayed in Oxford and the weather report that night was, you know, I look out the window and it's pouring with rain.
00:23:59I see a pigeon, you know, land and the, a gust of wind blows the pigeon off of its perch and into a puddle of water.
00:24:08I'm like, you can't like the weather's so bad that the birds are getting their asses kicked.
00:24:13And I watched the news and this woman came on and, and said, the railway's closed in the north and flooding in the south.
00:24:20And on and on she went about, and she finished her weather report with, if at all possible, don't leave your homes.
00:24:28I'm like, great.
00:24:28We're going to go ride it.
00:24:29We're going riding tomorrow.
00:24:30So, so it was perfectly British.
00:24:32It was, it was wonderful, but the, the bike worked great.
00:24:35And during that factory visit, you know, they were running down the line and they were laying gear sets into the, uh, uh, cases and all that.
00:24:44And then I looked in the corner and there was this great big machine cylinder had like a little window and you could see like purple flashing out of the window.
00:24:54And I said, Hey, what's that?
00:24:56And the guy's like, Oh, we plasma, we plasma nitride every crank and plasma nitriding is bombarding the surface, uh, to harden the surface and make it immaculate and durable for a really long time.
00:25:09It's a, it was very heartening to see that, you know, it was like this, these are, these are legit, you know, these are real modern.
00:25:18There's no, there's no stick, no chatter, none of that.
00:25:21We're, we're plasma nitriding our cranks and then walking them over here and stick them in motorcycles.
00:25:27It was, it was good.
00:25:28Although, although in 1962, I had a, uh, matchless twin apart and I measured the crank journals 1.6250 right on the money.
00:25:43And that motorcycle had been around the block.
00:25:47Used.
00:25:48So I, I carried this heavy thing to work, uh, the next day.
00:25:55And I went to see the foreman in the, uh, that branch of the university's, um, machine shop service.
00:26:04And I said, how can this journal come from a, a very well-used motorcycle and still measure the original dimension?
00:26:13And, oh, he said, it's nitrided.
00:26:17Hey, super.
00:26:19And, you know, I, yeah, I don't want to discredit.
00:26:21I mean, Britain made some fantastic things and they did, they, they did a lot of good work.
00:26:27Uh, the, uh, Edward Turner of Triumph fame.
00:26:31So Edward Turner did the twins.
00:26:32Edward Turner made, he made Triumph styling irresistible.
00:26:39Well, the bikes were gorgeous.
00:26:42They were pretty darn reliable.
00:26:44They weren't perfect, but darn it.
00:26:45They just ran and they were pretty easy to start.
00:26:48And even when they were kind of off, they were good.
00:26:51He was hired at Daimler and he designed a couple of Hemi V8s, uh, for Daimler cars.
00:26:57And, uh, the Daimler 2.5 V8, that was used in the Daimler Dart and some other, that was
00:27:04used in some Jaguars that were also called Daimlers and, uh, and also the 4.5 V8.
00:27:09And the 4.5 was in like the, oh, uh, princess, I think they call it a, no, that was a three
00:27:16liter six.
00:27:17They used them in these big, uh, Daimler Majestic Major.
00:27:20That's what it was.
00:27:21It was the Majestic Major limousine, 4.5 liter, gorgeous engine on the outside.
00:27:26Hemi.
00:27:27So the big valve covers and the, uh, ignition wires sticks went into the centrally located
00:27:35spark plug.
00:27:36The internals on those engines were forged.
00:27:39The rods and crank were forged.
00:27:43And the 2.5, there was a famous sprinter, a drag racer who built a drag car using a Daimler
00:27:492.5.
00:27:50He was cranking out 1000 horsepower from a 2.5 liter on stock crank and rods.
00:28:00So yes, magnificent.
00:28:02Yeah.
00:28:02It was nice to see in 2001 to go to Oxford, to get rained on, to be frozen.
00:28:09Uh, I learned a trick, you know, I grew up in Southern California.
00:28:13You wash motorcycles, you just turn the hose on, put it in your bucket, wash your bike.
00:28:17But it was, it was like 39 degrees and raining.
00:28:22And we stopped at the pub for lunch and everybody went inside to sit next to the fire because
00:28:28everybody was cold, but the sun had come out a little bit.
00:28:32There was a break in the clouds.
00:28:34So I grabbed my photographer, David Goldman of Golden Goose, very dedicated, hardworking
00:28:39guy.
00:28:40I said, David, can we go do photos?
00:28:42And he said, absolutely.
00:28:44It's, this is maybe the only time we get light.
00:28:46And so I skipped my, you know, my meat pie and all that stuff.
00:28:51David Goldman being British took the bucket to the kitchen and said, could you fill this
00:28:57with hot water, please?
00:28:59And we washed it with hot water and we weren't freezing our knuckles off.
00:29:03It was, it was, you know, tribal knowledge from England.
00:29:09Yes.
00:29:10Use hot water to wash your motorcycle on a cold day.
00:29:13Anyways.
00:29:16Components we were using, that's, I think, a big, a big difference there for the Modern
00:29:26Triumph was there really weren't any suppliers left for the normal hand controls and brakes
00:29:33and all that.
00:29:33And so what do you do?
00:29:34You get your Nissans and your Shoahs and you take advantage of the fact that that stuff
00:29:40comes out pretty darn pristine and ready to fit.
00:29:43The thing that's tough, though, is that you order those things in quantities that you
00:29:50think you'll need and they come in in dribs and drabs.
00:29:53So what John Bloor did was to create a subsidiary Triumph Thailand and started out with a components
00:30:07business.
00:30:08Their job was to get together all of the cables and brakes and electronics and what have you, load
00:30:20it all into shipping containers and make sure that it got to Britain as needed.
00:30:24So because Thailand is a big value added manufacturing nation.
00:30:32Now they make hundreds of thousands of cars and they've been producing motorcycles for the
00:30:38Japanese companies for years.
00:30:41So all of that supply network that used to be available in Britain to back up their motorcycle
00:30:51industry, but which atrophied away, now existed in Thailand.
00:30:57And so Triumph connected with it so that they would have a reliable source of all of the things
00:31:06that they weren't going to manufacture themselves and that was enlarged from time to time until
00:31:14they were manufacturing some of the components and they were preparing to manufacture motorcycles
00:31:22there.
00:31:23Another thing that you would find in Thailand and might not in the UK is you go to the bank
00:31:29and you say, I'd like you to look at my business plan and the eyebrows go up and then they come
00:31:39down as they see the word manufacturing.
00:31:43We don't, we don't do that sort of thing anymore here, but in Thailand, it was normal.
00:31:51Go to the bank, get the money, get online with your product and start paying it off.
00:31:59That's how banking works.
00:32:01They make successful loans that pay themselves off.
00:32:05So that was another element in the, in the move to Thailand, which began in this century.
00:32:11But another thing that they did was to keep the product line always fresh to produce a new
00:32:24models at a rate that other manufacturers actually weren't matching.
00:32:29Another thing was, and this used to be a strong point of the Japanese, when the market is down,
00:32:37go for market share.
00:32:40And Bloor, when the market was down, said, let's push on because when the market comes back,
00:32:48we'll be ready and they will not.
00:32:51And so it turned out, they compared their buyers with those of Harley-Davidson.
00:33:01They said each year, the age of the Harley-Davidson buyer increases by one year.
00:33:11Over a 10-year period, our buyer's age has fallen.
00:33:17One, what that means is our product is attractive to younger people.
00:33:26And it's affordable for them.
00:33:28So they're buying it.
00:33:30And of course, all these business stories read like, oh, why didn't I think of that?
00:33:37It's all so obvious.
00:33:38But at the time, it's not obvious because when there's a down market, as there was in 2008,
00:33:47people, the last thing people want to do is to lay out money.
00:33:50They don't want to tool a new product.
00:33:54The same thing happened around 2002 when the Japanese manufacturers and the European ones
00:34:01had the same light bulb go on at the same time.
00:34:06We'll give them little electronic gizmos for their bikes rather than giving them new models.
00:34:15So it has turned out that the Bloor operation has made a lot of right decisions,
00:34:23just as Mr. Bloor had done before he was 40.
00:34:29So that when he laid out money for this new product, he had spent 90 million pounds
00:34:38tooling buildings.
00:34:43The first building was 120,000 square feet.
00:34:47That's 346 feet on a side if it were square.
00:34:51That's a big building.
00:34:54That's a big gamble.
00:34:57But he had made many gambles before and evidently had a head for figures.
00:35:06And he was able to get it right so often.
00:35:12Well, of course, his son Nick has taken over now.
00:35:16Mr. Bloor is what?
00:35:2181 now, I think.
00:35:25So he's deserving of whatever he likes.
00:35:31We don't know.
00:35:33Yeah, when I saw him, I happened to run into him.
00:35:37He wasn't overly excited about it.
00:35:41He was showing up at the office, coincidentally, and I happened to be there.
00:35:45And I don't, you know, my memory says it was a helicopter, but it might have been a range
00:35:51rover.
00:35:53But I went bounding up because I'm like, well, I can go say hi to the man, you know.
00:35:57And my handler was, you can see, was like slightly uncomfortable with me bounding across the car
00:36:03park to go say, just to confront Mr. Bloor and say top of the morning to you.
00:36:08But I did.
00:36:09And he was polite, but you could see he was a private person and he wasn't accustomed to
00:36:14journalists running across the yard to say hi.
00:36:17Yeah, he deserves, he deserves to do whatever he wishes to do at this point.
00:36:25So by the mid 90s, it was a really different operation, different company, you know.
00:36:30So they were quite conservative coming out of the gate.
00:36:34The designs were very, you know, people were likening them to mid 80s Kawasaki's.
00:36:38They were, yes.
00:36:40And, you know, they just had.
00:36:41Black epoxy finish on engine parts.
00:36:43Big blocky pieces and, you know, they were, they were good looking, but it wasn't.
00:36:52You know, you didn't, you didn't have a spiritual connection to the previous stuff with all the
00:36:58contours and, and all the, all that.
00:37:01They made no effort to say like, oh, this is an extension or a relationship with the triple.
00:37:06That was just the old triple that was all gone.
00:37:09No sausage mufflers.
00:37:11It was just modern motorcycles, pretty conservative.
00:37:14But by the time we get to mid 90s and then like T595, that was, you know, had the tubular
00:37:23aluminum frame.
00:37:25They had made the engines more compact, more valve area, electronic fuel injection.
00:37:30They were, you know, really going full speed ahead in that regard.
00:37:35And they were, they were good motorcycles.
00:37:37I remember one of the years.
00:37:41They were looking to kind of refresh the five, the nine, five, five, triple nine, five, five.
00:37:49I, and one of the designers that they had been using finished it in this really beautiful
00:37:58shade of silver with very, very crisp subdued graphics, just nine, five, five.
00:38:06I, and it was very handsome.
00:38:10It made an impression.
00:38:11I still remember it.
00:38:12I could see it parked in the parking lot at our old Newport beach office.
00:38:16And it was fun to ride.
00:38:17Good bike.
00:38:17It was not, it was just cool, man.
00:38:20Single sided swing arm and you know, all that.
00:38:22It was, uh, you know, it was not, it was not a CBR 900, RR 954, no, that it was its own
00:38:30deal.
00:38:30So, and, uh, we were better for it, I think.
00:38:35In the way, in a way, um, what Triumph we're doing all along is what the industry has been
00:38:44now been required to do by Euro 5, which is to run valve timing with very little valve overlap.
00:38:53Normally, the intake valves begin to open slightly before top center and the exhausts, which are
00:39:01still in the final phases of decelerating to the seat after top dead center.
00:39:08And in the 1930s, race engines like Velocets and so forth would have 85 or 90 degrees of
00:39:15valve overlap.
00:39:15And of course, what that allows to happen is intake flow comes in the intake valve, sees
00:39:25the open exhaust valve and heads for the high country.
00:39:32And when the EPA is waiting there or the European Union, the gray men of Brussels with their five
00:39:42gas analyzers, they say, no, no, you can't, you can't, you can't operate that in our, uh, purview.
00:39:51Get a hence.
00:39:54So short valve overlap is a major ingredient in grunty, uh, broad range torque.
00:40:05And Triumph had early experience at that.
00:40:11So now they're looking smart for this reason, as well as the others that we've described.
00:40:17Um, Japan is left with all these sport bikes that aren't wanted.
00:40:26And so after much thought and argument, they decided that's not going anywhere.
00:40:34We're going to have to build these, what is it?
00:40:38Twins and triples.
00:40:40So the market seems to be confirming what Triumph has done for other reasons.
00:40:49And, uh, that's a very attractive story.
00:40:52I like success.
00:40:54Failure scares me.
00:40:55So, uh, I feel that, that this is a, a wonderful, positive story that shows motorcycles can be
00:41:10built anywhere that you have a stable society, electric power, and, uh, trainable people, even
00:41:24even England, as someone pointed out to me, even England, because all the errors of the past
00:41:32were the result of being first.
00:41:37When you're first at something as England was with, with the construction of metal ships,
00:41:44you develop ways of handling everything, you have procedures, you have working people who
00:41:53expect things to be done a certain way.
00:41:56And along come the upstart Germans and the Italians.
00:42:00And those people up in Scandinavia build ships too.
00:42:05And in Germany, they were trying to do things from first principles.
00:42:09When they tried to do things in England from first principles, they ran into trouble with
00:42:15the labor force.
00:42:16Well, you see, we're a craft union and we do things this way.
00:42:21Well, we're going to retrain you so you can do it our way.
00:42:25No, we like our way.
00:42:27So there was a period in England of intense enmity between labor and management.
00:42:35And both sides agreed on one thing.
00:42:40We'd rather go out of business than give an inch.
00:42:45So that's what they did.
00:42:49The British product was not out-competed by Japan.
00:42:55There wasn't dumping.
00:42:57What had happened was Japan, whose 66 largest cities were burned out by the B-29 assault in
00:43:08five months, Japan had no industry left.
00:43:12So they had to start with everything brand new.
00:43:17But Norton still had that boring machine with the loose spindle and it needed a stick.
00:43:26And so rather than say, Saturday, get the maintenance guys in here and change that bearing out.
00:43:32Well, we can't get that bearing.
00:43:33That machine was made in 1929.
00:43:37Oh, well, get the stick.
00:43:40We'll soldier on.
00:43:43Starting afresh gives an advantage.
00:43:47Being first gives an advantage at first.
00:43:50Britain's industrial revolution was a true revolution because it placed steam power at human beck and call.
00:44:00You want to forge huge pieces of metal?
00:44:02You want to saw vast timbers?
00:44:05We've got the power to do it.
00:44:07But there's a legacy that comes with being first, which is hard to root out because it has worked.
00:44:20It's always worked before.
00:44:21And so this gave the advantage to the nations that had to start over and Japan foremost among them.
00:44:33I mean, England had, you know, England's got the famous iron bridge.
00:44:36And it was kind of the crucible of manufacturing.
00:44:43They had everything.
00:44:44They had coal and they had ore.
00:44:46And it was the first iron bridge that was made.
00:44:49And it led to, you know, everything else being made out of metal.
00:44:52It was sort of iron bridge.
00:44:55I mean, it's crazy.
00:44:55But, yeah, that's where it all began for them.
00:44:58And it's a curious fact that one of the pioneers of metal ship construction was named Scott Russell.
00:45:05Oh.
00:45:06Good times.
00:45:11Yeah.
00:45:14This triumph story, of course, we don't know what the future holds and neither do they.
00:45:24They've got a better handle on it than I do because that's their whole job, predicting the future and making it.
00:45:32But they have expanded into off-road.
00:45:41They have a one motocross machine and probably a larger displacement one coming.
00:45:47Oh, no.
00:45:48Yeah, they've got a 250 and 450 going.
00:45:50We've had them.
00:45:52Yeah, they're competitive.
00:45:53We've dyno tested them for our dirt publication, Dirt Rider.
00:45:57The 250, yes, it's a thoroughly modern engine.
00:46:03It's something that takes advantage of all that is best in engine design.
00:46:11But then you say, oh, well, what if electrics make rapid progress?
00:46:17What if there's a big battery breakthrough?
00:46:19We don't expect that because, first of all, people, except for city commuters, are not that attracted to electric motorcycles.
00:46:31It turned out, for example, with Harley-Davidson's LiveWire, that it was very important to people what kind of power plant was in it.
00:46:41It wasn't going to just be, oh, what's it got for power?
00:46:45It's got an electric motor now.
00:46:47Oh, that'll be fine.
00:46:48I bet it's quiet.
00:46:52Oh, it's a big spiritual trouble for, you know, if you look at Honda, and this is coming from the mouths of people within Honda, and same with Harley.
00:47:03Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Honda Motor Company.
00:47:07Yes.
00:47:08How do we build, I mean, particularly for Harley, how do we build something that says it's a Harley-Davidson and it's electric?
00:47:15How does that work?
00:47:18You know, they designed a heartbeat into the LiveWire so that when you turned it on and you weren't applying the power, they would twitch the engine.
00:47:28It would quiver a bit to let you know it was there.
00:47:31Yeah.
00:47:31You would feel something.
00:47:32So, you know, tip of the hat to Brad Richards there on thinking that one through.
00:47:38But still, a total addressable market for electric motorcycles is virtually nil.
00:47:44Triumph is developing this thing they call TE1, Triumph electric number one, because it would be foolish not to have your tow in that water.
00:47:56But at the same time, some German auto manufacturers are saying, we plan to continue developing the internal combustion engine because we believe that synthesized fuels are a definite possibility.
00:48:18Now, what does that mean?
00:48:20It means that you would combine fuels that we burn now are hydrocarbons.
00:48:28They're compounds of hydrogen and carbon atoms.
00:48:31All right, we start in our factory extracting carbon from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
00:48:40This is anti-global warming.
00:48:44If you take carbon away, it's a much better thing than continuing to add it in the view of the climate predictors.
00:48:56So, then where do you get the hydrogen?
00:49:00You electrolyze it from water using electric power.
00:49:05Where does the electric power come from?
00:49:07It must come entirely from renewables.
00:49:10Because that way you can say, this is a synthesized renewable fuel because we can do this process forever and not add anything in the way of carbon to the atmosphere.
00:49:27But, big but, it calls for a large surplus of renewable power, which does not at present exist.
00:49:40So, again, we're poking around in the future and we can't feel anything.
00:49:46What's out there?
00:49:49So, what you do is you prepare contingencies, contingency plans, and synthesized hydrocarbon fuels are one of the possibilities.
00:50:00And, I would argue that if you needed to roll an electric motorcycle out forthwith, you have everything else that you need going in your current motorcycle.
00:50:14You're not really presented with a huge packaging problem.
00:50:18No.
00:50:19And, you just make one and you call, you know, you may have, you know, you may have some advantage in your power management and all that other business, you know, the controller and all that.
00:50:35So, you probably, you probably could find an advantage if you dedicated a bunch of research to that.
00:50:40But, the difference between buying Heller crankshaft machines and tooling up for a new engine versus, hey, we need an electric right now.
00:50:50I think the electric prospect is a far more direct line.
00:50:57So, it's hard to see what can happen.
00:51:01Well, people continue to talk about batteries improving by leaps and bounds.
00:51:07When I look at it, I see that lithium ion improved for several years at a rate of about 5% a year in terms of energy storage per pound of battery.
00:51:20Then it dropped to 3% where it has remained.
00:51:25So, that has allowed energy storage to double or a bit more.
00:51:31But, there's no prospect for a sudden, no later than Friday, super duper battery that will have the same energy density as gasoline or diesel fuel.
00:51:46There are the lithium air battery, which some have put research into.
00:51:54If it could be made to work, would it be a wonderful improvement?
00:52:01But, how do you get oxygen out of the air, which has moisture in it, which loves lithium?
00:52:12You have to carry a chemical synthesis unit with you on your vehicle.
00:52:20Oh, we want the oxygen, but not the water vapor, you stay over there.
00:52:26That's a good chap.
00:52:27And, IBM put a bunch of money into lithium air for several years and decided, not right now.
00:52:37We can't afford to put this much money into this right now with this prospect of success.
00:52:43So, people talk about exciting new developments, but when you look in detail at what they are, they are small changes to existing chemistries.
00:52:57Oh, silicon nanorods make a wonderful electrode because they are filled with empty space that ions can populate.
00:53:07Yes, but the nanorods have to conduct electricity.
00:53:13So, we coat them with carbon powder.
00:53:18But, how do we make the carbon powder stay on there?
00:53:22How do we make it compatible with the electrolyte?
00:53:25These are problems that can occupy years of research.
00:53:29So, huge advances are maybe possible, but they're not likely.
00:53:39So, the idea of the Energica motorcycle, electric bike, Energica, I think, no longer manufacture.
00:53:49Dorna had an electric class that employed their motorcycle, which weighed 589 pounds.
00:53:56And Dorna basically said, as long as it'll do 10 laps, that's all we need.
00:54:04And so, they have that electric class.
00:54:07It's now a Ducati in place of the Energica.
00:54:11So, it's a call for gambles.
00:54:19Who's going to win?
00:54:20Of course, then there are the people who say, oh, well, AI will solve this problem in the twinkling of an eye.
00:54:27Let's welcome that when it happens.
00:54:34What do you think?
00:54:36Yeah.
00:54:38I'm still a fan of natural intelligence.
00:54:42Well, it can get you into a lot of trouble in marriage and human relationships generally.
00:54:46Something about experience?
00:54:51I think the large language models right now are just a fancy autocomplete.
00:54:56You know, it does bum me out because we go to great lengths to do good work and post it on our website.
00:55:04And then someone will go to Google, which uses an AI summary.
00:55:10Or there are lots of people who are just jumping into ChatGPT and not using Google at all.
00:55:15And they ask questions and the large language model goes out and it's already read everything.
00:55:20And it interprets your question and gives you an answer.
00:55:25And so, here's the AI summary in Google.
00:55:29And you don't even have to come to my website anymore.
00:55:32Or they just sort of hand it to you on a platter.
00:55:35Well, we put a lot of human effort into testing that motorcycle.
00:55:41Yeah.
00:55:42So, we hope to continue.
00:55:44That's why we make videos, too.
00:55:46Yes, it is why we make videos, too.
00:55:48I had a good experience, though, this morning with Google.
00:55:52So, I read an article about how a set of improved alloys of copper and lithium had been made possible by adding small amounts of tantalum.
00:56:12And in the past, they've made copper-lithium alloys, but they deteriorate at temperature.
00:56:20Yeah.
00:56:22They weren't useful.
00:56:24They want to make highly thermally conductive materials that can operate at high temperature.
00:56:31Well, you put tantalum into it.
00:56:33So, I looked up.
00:56:34How much, how soluble is tantalum in copper?
00:56:40Negligible.
00:56:42So, then I thought, how do they get the tantalum in there?
00:56:45I'll bet they use powder metallurgy.
00:56:50They grind it all up real fine.
00:56:52And then they center it together.
00:56:55They hip it, hot, isostatic processing.
00:57:01And they give it various heat treatments so that the grain boundaries in the lithium-copper alloy are covered with a bifilm of tantalum atoms that solve all these problems.
00:57:18I was so pleased because I thought, must be powder metallurgy.
00:57:23So, I asked Google and it said, yes, it is prepared by powder metallurgy.
00:57:30But other times I've used it and it sounds like, well, we averaged the opinions that we could find.
00:57:36Oh, 100%.
00:57:38Yeah.
00:57:39In other words, no information.
00:57:41Well, the internet is interesting in that way because, you know, you have the main challenge is signal-to-noise ratio because you can say anything.
00:57:50You could just, I could just, I could write down whatever I want and I could get it out there and it becomes part of the sample.
00:57:57And if you ask, you know, if you have a flat tap at V8 and you're like, well, I'd like to understand, you know, how much ZDDP I would like, how much zinc I would like and phosphorus and will it react with calcium?
00:58:13Should I use a diesel oil because maybe the ash dispersants get in the way of the, of the zinc.
00:58:20Like, but you can actually find any, any opinion that you want or don't want.
00:58:26The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible.
00:58:28But as you did, you asked a very specific question and you got an answer.
00:58:34And the more specifically you can ask the question, typically the better of an answer that you're going to get.
00:58:40AI summaries often start not too bad, but they always have the disclaimer.
00:58:45AI summaries contain errors, can contain errors, whatever it says.
00:58:52It's like investment advice.
00:58:54Investment advice always has that.
00:58:56Yeah.
00:58:56But the deeper you go, the more, the more likely you are to start finding gross errors.
00:59:03I asked, I was putting the power steering pump back on my pickup truck and I was like, yeah.
00:59:10You know, I look at the reservoir and I think about the volume of the system and I might less than two quarts.
00:59:16I've got it covered, but I just wanted to be sure that I had enough so that I didn't pour it in.
00:59:20And then I can't run the truck because I don't have a half a quart of power steering fluid.
00:59:25So I said, Hey, dear internet, what's the power steering fluid capacity of a 1989 Ford F-250?
00:59:32Six liters.
00:59:34Nope.
00:59:35I mean, just right there.
00:59:37It's six liters.
00:59:38It's not, not at all.
00:59:40So.
00:59:40That's the engine.
00:59:41The engine is six liters.
00:59:43It is indeed.
00:59:44It is.
00:59:45It is.
00:59:46And it has flat tappets.
00:59:49Well.
00:59:54I want to say as much as we like.
00:59:57As much as we liked the traditional Bonneville, the speed, the speed twins, the speed twin,
01:00:06they're doing the speed twin 900.
01:00:07They were calling it a street twin before, but they've just gone with speed.
01:00:13So they have a speed twin 1200 and the speed twin 900.
01:00:17The 900 is very much spiritually aligned with old Bonneville.
01:00:22It's really wonderful.
01:00:23It's, it's, it's kind of the right size.
01:00:25It's compact.
01:00:27In a lot of ways, I prefer that over the 1200, but you can't beat the 1200 for.
01:00:35Hmm.
01:00:35Total satisfaction.
01:00:39They build a beautiful torque curve.
01:00:40It's just wallops right off the bottom and it, you know, slowly tapers down, but it's
01:00:45four valves, uh, a little overlap, big plateau torque curve, very satisfying and a great chassis.
01:00:54I mean, dang, like, and just, you can see through the motorcycle.
01:00:59They've, they've made a point of, that's an important point right there.
01:01:02Giving, giving you holes to get light through the motorcycle.
01:01:05You look at new Harley touring bikes and it's like, here's the V and the, you can, you can
01:01:10see air light can come through and highlight the engine.
01:01:14There's space between the rear cylinder and the under seat business.
01:01:17Yep.
01:01:21Not packed solid.
01:01:22Yeah.
01:01:23We're pretty dumb.
01:01:23And then of course, for those traditionalists who want air cooling, I can only say, if you
01:01:32want it air cooled, you're not going to be able to have four valves unless you liquid cool
01:01:36the exhaust valve area as other manufacturers have done.
01:01:41You're not going to be able to have the 12 or 13 to one compression that gives you that
01:01:46right now torque.
01:01:48You're going to be stuck at nine or 10.
01:01:50And so the liquid cooling is there for good reasons.
01:01:58It makes four valves last forever.
01:02:01Yeah.
01:02:01Well, I was real surprised recently.
01:02:03I just finished riding the R12 G slash S as they're calling it.
01:02:09It's, it's a BMW's new adventure kind of it's inspired by the R80 GS.
01:02:15It's got the orange seat.
01:02:16They made a real strong point of drawing, you know, these lines.
01:02:20They wanted to get, cause you have over here, you know, you've got the R1300 GS and the
01:02:25beauty of being BMW is technology is technology on, on my sleeve tech.
01:02:33I mean, it, that's, that's what we're here for.
01:02:36That's what that customer wants is that motorcycle has electronic ride control.
01:02:43And so when you slow down, it lowers front and rear, and then you take off, it lifts up.
01:02:50When you go to put that motorcycle on the center stand, you have the power on, you stand next to it, power's on, engine's off.
01:03:01You push down on the center stand.
01:03:03And as soon as you do that, the pumps start whirring.
01:03:07It raises the suspension and you just go click right on the center stand.
01:03:12And then it pulls the wheels.
01:03:14Yeah.
01:03:14Like that's what that motorcycle is about.
01:03:17G slash S, not about that.
01:03:19G slash S is, it has electronics.
01:03:22It's got enduro pro mode and you can turn off traction control, turn it on.
01:03:26You've got ABS, lean sensitive ABS.
01:03:28You have it, but it's packaged in a nostalgic wrapper.
01:03:33Anyway, the whole point of all of this is that that bike has the 1170 flat twin that we've seen for a long time,
01:03:39radial valves and all that business, air oil cooled.
01:03:43The new engine in 2005, the HP two enduro had 11 to one compression, which I thought was impressive.
01:03:49The new bike is 12 to one.
01:03:52Yeah.
01:03:52On an air oil cooled four valve.
01:03:55I'm like, dang, you guys are like 12 to one, man.
01:03:58That's, I mean, that 1300, I believe is 13 to one.
01:04:03And that's a fully liquid cooled.
01:04:06And, you know, it's, uh, it's remarkable.
01:04:09And we just did go look at last week's show.
01:04:11We just did the old BMW, uh, flat twin evolution.
01:04:14And it was inspired by riding that GS and experience of that engine with 130 horse, really something.
01:04:20But back on Triumph, I want to talk about the cruisers because everybody has to make a cruiser.
01:04:28BMW is making the R18.
01:04:30They're doing everything they can to sell that bike.
01:04:33And they have a limited market because I believe it's outside the brand identity.
01:04:38It's beautifully done.
01:04:40They took an R32 and they stretched it and made it big.
01:04:44And it's 800 pounds.
01:04:45And it's very evocative of the R32, but it's sort of mixed up with the American long and low thing.
01:04:52And I think the retro BMW, maybe it would have been more successful to make it more like a BMW and to tap into that ready-made market.
01:05:05Because jamming your R32 into Harley space doesn't necessarily give you Harley volume.
01:05:12Identity.
01:05:12Yep.
01:05:14And so that's the thing.
01:05:16You know, I went to, um, I went to ride a prototype of the Thunderbird, which was the big, the giant parallel twin that Triumph was making.
01:05:26And I was very surprised to initially ride that and discover that it was a great sports standard engine.
01:05:35It was, but it was not a cruiser engine.
01:05:37They did not have the crank mass to make, to make that thing run the way that an American cruiser rider would run.
01:05:45And they asked me and I told them, I was like, this is a really great sports standard.
01:05:50If you put this in like a real muscle naked, you'd really have something.
01:05:53It's a great power plant.
01:05:54But you couldn't, you couldn't roll, roll the RPM down to like 12, 1400 and just kind of squeeze into it.
01:06:03It was, it didn't have the mass to keep that smooth and it would start to buck.
01:06:07And so they went back and.
01:06:09Tungsten slugs into the crank.
01:06:11Well, they, well, they, they went back and did a whole, a whole bunch of extra work, um, to, to mass it up, you know, to get that, whatever it was.
01:06:19I don't know what they ended up with, but a lot of times, uh, the cruisers are running 40 pound cranks.
01:06:24Yes.
01:06:25To make that, to smooth that out and to keep that inertia going when you don't have a power pulse to, you know, accelerate the crank and just keep it going.
01:06:36So that was not a resounding success.
01:06:40Again, a really well done motorcycle and really well designed, but not, you know, just wasn't resonating with the market.
01:06:46And everybody always says like, whatever, whatever Harley's volume is, just give me 10% and they don't even get close to 10%.
01:06:56One, maybe 2%.
01:06:58Sure.
01:06:59Um, but that's the 1600 was, was pretty neat.
01:07:03And then the rocket three was mental and it still is mental there.
01:07:06I'm surprised that they've kept with it as long as they have, but it is a truly unique experience.
01:07:12That inline three, um, three giant pistons really just, uh, crazy.
01:07:24I threw the clutch on the press launch for one of those thinking I was going to do a big smoky burnout.
01:07:28And, uh, it was, the tire was warm enough and the traction was there and that thing reared up like a rhinoceros.
01:07:39I mean, it just did a wheelie.
01:07:40I was like, I never would have thought that that could happen, but here we are.
01:07:44It was good.
01:07:45And they've, they've really cemented that bike's identity.
01:07:48I think they did a good job.
01:07:50A lot of their cruisers have been really cool too.
01:07:52The Bobber.
01:07:53Um, again, lovely bike.
01:07:57I don't think it's sold in, in mass quantities, but, um, very, very well designed.
01:08:03And of course they were so successful and they, they really built motorcycling expertise right there in the middle of England and Hinkley.
01:08:14And then what does Royal Enfield do?
01:08:16Opens up their technology center down the block and look at all these motorcycle experts that know how to make twins and, uh, air cooling and all that.
01:08:28And, uh, they, they've made some very choice recruitments.
01:08:31Yes.
01:08:32What'll it take to get you to walk down the street?
01:08:37Yep.
01:08:37Simon Warburton, man.
01:08:38He was, uh, he designed, he was part of the team that did the triple, the seven, uh, uh, seven, six, five, uh, triple.
01:08:46And, uh, Daytona and the Iran product for a while.
01:08:53And, uh, he's, he's doing big wig things over in manufacturing with, uh, Royal Enfield in the beautiful center, central England.
01:09:03Well, that's it folks.
01:09:06We have, uh, we have journeyed through, uh, triumphs, modern, uh, modern expression, and also taken a few side trips into lithium, et cetera, because.
01:09:14You know, it's all related in the end.
01:09:16And as Kevin likes to say, you get to a certain age and everything reminds you of something else.
01:09:20Uh, thanks for listening, folks.
01:09:25Uh, podcast is brought to you, uh, by Octane.
01:09:28We have the Octane Prequal Flex link down in the description.
01:09:31Go check it out.
01:09:31Click on the link, shop for a bike, uh, see, uh, see if you qualify.
01:09:36And if you do, you can go to a dealer like Cash and perhaps buy the motorcycle of your dreams.
01:09:41Uh, appreciate you being here.
01:09:43We'll see you in the comments.
01:09:45We'll see you next time.
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