COTTON Tales
'Cotton never put Triumph engines in their frames - is it a special?'That's a statement and question all rolled into one that I often hear at events where classic bikes and riders congregate .
'Yes, they did ... but yes, it kind-of is; I reply, my usual slightly tongue-in-cheek answer to those observers as they cast their eyes over the scarlet red 'street scrambler'.
Of course putting a Triumph twin engine into a different frame, most notably the Norton featherbed, was once almost a national pastime, and all varieties of frame and Triumph engine combinations spring to mind. Before this machine arrived I'd been trying to locate a suitable Triumph twin to slot into a spare BSA rolling chassis I happened to have and create my own Tribsa suitable for long distance trials. Then fate took a hand and I noticed an advert offering this very much-admired and well-known (within the Motor Cycling Club anyway) example of a Cotton -framed Triumph . As I already had a LDT bike, an SP370, I wasn't really that interested, so I mentioned it to a friend who I thought was in the market for a Triumph-engined machine. As it turned out, he wasn't.
The more/ looked at it, the more interested I became, and once I'd worked out how to square the asking much money? What would Mrs H say? What might Mrs H moment I'd been 'just popping out for a pint of milk and a loaf of bread' and the next (well, it was four hours later) I was going home with a Cotton Triumph instead. How did that happen?
