CarBrandLogos archive · Triumph Motorcycles · 1949

Triumph MotorcyclesThunderbird

The 650 that gave America more engine, and gave Brando something to lean on.

Photo: Yesterdays Antique Motorcycles · 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 Thunderbird, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

American dealers had one complaint about the Speed Twin: not enough of it. Turner's answer in 1949 was to enlarge the 500 into a 650 — same layout, same pushrod parallel-twin architecture, more capacity and more torque for riders who covered long distances at speed on straight roads.

Triumph Thunderbird 900 · Piero · Public domain

Design and engineering

Triumph launched it with a stunt that has rarely been bettered. Three machines were taken to the banked circuit at Montlhéry outside Paris, each ran 500 miles at an average of over 90 mph, and each finished with a flying lap above 100 mph before being ridden back to the factory. It was a demonstration of durability as much as speed, and it made the point in front of the press in a single afternoon.

Triumph Thunderbird · Self · Public domain

In production

The bike then acquired a cultural life its makers had not planned. Marlon Brando rode a Thunderbird in The Wild One in 1953, and Triumph found itself the machine of choice for exactly the customers the film's moral panic was about. Sales in the United States climbed regardless.

Triumph Thunderbird1600 2 · MrPanyGoff · CC BY-SA 3.0

Legacy

Mechanically it evolved steadily: swinging-arm rear suspension replaced the sprung hub, unit construction arrived in the early 1960s, and for a few years it wore the enclosed rear bodywork that Turner favoured and riders did not. It stayed in the range until 1966, overtaken by the twin-carburettor Bonneville derived from it. The name has since been used twice more by the Hinckley company, on a triple in the mid-1990s and on a large cruiser twin from 2009.

At a glance