THUG LIFE
I'm willing to bet that most reviews you read of the new Speed Triple will harp on about the model's 24-year history and sales of close to 80,000 units. Oh bugger, now I've done it! Anyway, that's all well and good, and very nice work Triumph, but apart from sharing a name and two wheels, the earlier models have no bearing whatsoever on the current bike which, by the standard's of the original T309, is packed with more technology and performance than even the most prescient designer could have conceived of back in 1994. Happy days for us smug bastards living in the future, though.
That's not to say Triumph isn't trading somewhat on that legacy and just the look of the block, with its jet-black cases and bountiful quantity of shiny bolt heads, harks back to the visually striking donk powering the first Speedy.
In fact, the latest iteration is pretty far removed from even its most recent 2015 predecessor, certainly from an electronics point of view, if not so much in looks. For example, the last model was home to four
