CarBrandLogos archive · Triumph Motorcycles · 1994

Triumph MotorcyclesSpeed Triple

Hinckley stripped the fairing off its sports bike and found an identity.

Photo: MotorideSA · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Triumph Motorcycles history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Triumph Motorcycles Speed Triple, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Triumph's reborn Hinckley operation started out with a modular range: a common three-cylinder engine and frame, dressed up as tourers, sports bikes and roadsters. The 1994 Speed Triple was the version that stopped feeling like a catalogue entry and started feeling like a decision. It was the faired Daytona stripped back to a single round headlamp, flat bars and an exposed engine — a factory-built answer to the crashed-and-rebuilt sports bikes that riders were already calling streetfighters.

Triumph Speed Triple 1050 · Thruxton · CC BY 3.0

Design and engineering

The timing was good. A one-make Speed Triple Challenge race series in the mid-1990s put identical bikes in front of British audiences and gave the model a competitive credibility that a naked roadster would not normally get. Then in 1997 came the T509, with fuel injection, an aluminium frame and the twin round headlamps that have identified the model ever since. A cameo under Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2 did the rest.

Triumph Speed Triple 1050 2011 · DeFacto · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

Capacity grew as the platform did, reaching the 1050 cc triple in 2005, and the character stayed consistent throughout: mid-range torque rather than top-end shriek, upright riding position, minimal bodywork, and a bike deliberately unsuited to being quiet about itself. Later versions added electronics, Öhlins suspension and an RS designation, and the model became the flagship of Triumph's naked range rather than a sideline from the sports bikes.

Triumph Speed Triple 1050 RS · Cjp24 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Legacy

It matters to the company because it was the first thing modern Triumph built that no Japanese manufacturer was already making. Everything the brand now sells on character rather than specification traces back to it.

At a glance