Triumph Tiger
The prewar 1939 Triumph Tiger used girder front forks and a rigid frame.
Triumph Tiger Background & History
The pre-Unit Triumph Tiger was well known to be the ‘hot rod version’ of Triumphs more pedestrian bikes. It all started with the introduction of the world’s first vertical twin the 500cc 1938 Triumph 5T Speed Twin, a bike that totally changed the game. The rest of the British motorcycle industry, the ones who could afford it anyway, rushed to develop vertical twins of their own. But, before the first copycat appeared, Triumph had already upped the game with the launch of the 500cc 1939 Triumph 5T Tiger. The Tiger started with a base Speed Twin then added hotter cams, a bigger carburetor and higher compression to make more power. It was one of the fastest bikes you could buy in 1939. World War 2 intervened until civilian production resumed in 1946. The tiger got something else from the Speed Twin also: It's stodgy looks. With the birth of the Triumph Tiger, the Speed Twin was being demoted to the base model, and it looked like it. The seat, tank and headlight nacelle graced the T100 Tiger from the start, and it stuck, until the conversion to unit construction. It's interesting to note that when Triumph styled the first Bonneville in 1959, they used the old man-bodywork from the Speed Twin/Tiger/Thunderbird line, right down to the headlight nacelle. It took just one year for Triumph to get it right, and from 1960 on, the Bonneville was styled just like the svelte TR6.
The 1947 Triumph T100 Tiger ran a rigid frame with a sprung rear hub. But, like all postwar Triumphs, with telescopic forks replacing the prewar girder forks.
Triumph Tiger Leads the Way
Triumph again took the lead with their Speed Twin and T100 Tiger. By 1949, BSA, Norton, Royal Enfield and Matchless/AJS had all their own 500cc vertical twins. Triumph, always the leader in those days, bored and stroked it’s 500 into the first 650 in the vertical twins race. The new 650cc 1950 Triumph 6T Thunderbird once again dominated the landscape, while the others gasped for breath, trying to keep up. Some of their competitors came out with 650s of their own, Royal Enfield even trumping Triumph with a 700.
1954 Triumph T110 Tiger. Note the old-fashioned headlight nacelle, inherited from the Triumph Speed Twin.
In 1953 Triumph applied the same ‘Tiger-treatment’ to the 650 to create the 1953 Triumph T110 Tiger, now the fastest bike in Triumph’s arsenal. At least until 1956 when the Triumph TR6 was introduced to the market. The TR6 featured Triumph’s revolutionary new alloy Delta Head which gave it more power than the T110 Tiger with it’s ancient cast iron head. The Triumph T110 Tiger soldiered on until 1961 by which time it had become sort of irreverent, and supplanted its position to the TR6. The Tiger model name disappeared from Triumph’s lineup until 1968 when it was hitched to the TR6 family. By this time, Triumph was making just two basic 650 twins, the TR6 and the Bonneville. Gone were the Thunderbird and the T110 Tiger. In 1968 they referred to it as the “Tiger 650”, but in 1969 they started calling it the TR6 Tiger.
1961 Triumph T110 Tiger
The name stuck right through the big change over to Oil-in-Frame in 1971. By this point, all single-carb 650s were called TR6 Tigers. When the 650s got punched out to 750cc in 1973, the TR6 Tiger became the TR7 Tiger. The beleaguered Meriden Co-Op produced the TR7 Tiger through the 1980 model year, when it was dropped from production to focus all their dwindling resources on their now one-and-only model, the Triumph Bonneville.
By the time this 750cc 1973 Triumph TR7 Tiger was made, the Tiger was the single-carb twin, and the Bonneville was the twin-carb version.
Triumph Tiger Naming Convention
What did the T100 and the T110 refer to in the names of the two Tigers? This referenced the supposed top speed of each bike. The T100 was a 500cc twin with a theoretical top speed of around 100 mph. The T110 was the larger, more powerful 650, and thus should be capable of 110mph. This is the one bike that was actually pretty honest about it. The T110 Tiger had a recorded top speed of 109 mph. And on one of the runs it actually hit 114!
When the Triumph Bonneville launched in 1959, it was dubbed the T120, as a second carburetor presumably added 10 mph to the top speed. It's true top speed was more like 115 mhp.
When the 750 Trident triple launched in 1969 it was dubbed the T150. Could the new triple really do 150? Cycle world recorded a 117.03 mph top speed in 1969, officially it was 120, a far cry from 150. When the 650.
Bonneville got punched out to 750cc in 1973 it became the T140. Again, there weren't any stock 1973 Bonnevilles leaving the factory that could hit 140 mph, in fact the 115mph top speed of the T120 Bonneville remained unchanged in the T140. Chalk it up to artistic license. After all the years of ups and downs, the very first T120 Bonneville launched in 1959, had the same top speed as the 1973-and-later Bonnies.
One last quirky name-thing: Why is it that manufacturers like product names that start with the same letter as their company name? Triumph Tiger? Triumph Trident? Terrier? Thunderbird? Twenty One? It's not just them. Ford Falcon, Fusion, Fiesta, Fairlane; Chevy Chevelle, Chevette, Corvette, Camaro...
Triumph Tiger Motorcycle Books
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