A BRIT BIKE AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE

By the time the 1950s played out, Great Britain’s Triumph Motorcycles had established itself among the top-selling brands in North America. Other leading marques included Harley-Davidson, Norton and Royal Enfield, among others, plus BSA, which as a company had actually acquired Triumph Motorcycles earlier that decade.

It wasn’t by accident that Triumphs were so popular among American riders, either. Shortly after World War II’s merciful conclusion, Edward Turner and Jack Sangster, who shared the company’s managerial duties, realized that if Triumph was to sustain and grow it needed a majority of its sales to originate in North America. Clearly, Triumph’s initial postwar success was owed to the Speed Twin engine, itself a half-liter bundle of addictive horsepower. Models such as Triumph’s 5T Speed Twin and TR5 Trophy sold well, especially in North America where the United States and Canadian markets were sizzling due to postwar economies bullish on luxury and consumer items that had been denied citizens during the second war to end all wars.

But Turner, especially, understood that Triumph’s existing line of 500cc vertical twins wasn’t going to be enough. The Yanks and Canucks would eventually step up and demand more … more powerful engines, that is. Turner and Sangster searched for a solution, and by 1949 they both realized that models with larger-displacement engines were the answer.

Welcome to the era of British 650cc vertical twins, and the first entry to roll out of the Meridian factory became known as the 6T Thunderbird for the 1950 model year. Fittingly, that first model to carry the new 650cc engine got its name from Native North American mythology, perhaps a positive omen for Triumph’s new chapter in its remarkable