At first sight, it is very hard to believe that this very smart 500cc 1970 T100SS Tiger is over 50 years old – and that it has spent all but the first eight months of its road life with the same keeper, Bill Turner (no relation to Triumph twin designer Edward Turner).
Bill is a much less abrasive character than his namesake, and with characteristic modesty, attributes much of what turned out to be an excellent choice of a ‘keeper’ motorcycle, to his late wife Christina.
“Chris was very taken with the Jacaranda finish,” said Bill. In the 1969/70 era of ‘Purple Haze’, the attractive shade was bang up to date, without being as garish as the BSA Group’s subsequent ‘Hi-Violet’ or ‘Plum Crazy’ paintwork. The colour was derived, incidentally, from jacaranda mimosifolia, a flowering tree native to South America, due to its spectacular violet-coloured blooms, widely planted elsewhere, from Bhutan to Australia; where in Queensland, it’s known to students as ‘Purple Panic’ since it flowers during the stressful pre-exam period. So now you know.
“The T100 had been first registered at the end of October 1970,” said Bill, “and I got it in June 1971.” The matching engine/frame numbers indicate it had been built in September 1969, the month Triumph’s new model year commenced. It was
