In early 1973, Norton Villiers Triumph was created thanks partly to a major injection of cash from the Department of Trade, with all sorts of bluster about the move being a saviour for the industry. It was a shotgun wedding, and the major casualty was Triumph’s Meriden factory which was to be closed in the interests of manufacturing economy, with all future work to take place at the larger but more antiquated BSA complex at Small Heath in Birmingham.
While this unpleasant scene was developing, one of the most significant figures in Triumph’s history, Edward Turner, died. Within weeks it was announced that Meriden would begin the wind-down process in February 1974 with around 1,500 redundancies – an announcement that galvanised the militant workforce in to action. The gates of the factory were locked, senior staff members barred from entering, and despite holding large stocks, no complete motorcycles were permitted to be dispatched. The workers began a sit-in that would continue for a year and a half. Plans and counter-plans were proposed, but none came to fruition, and the Triumph name continued what seemed to be an irreversible slide into oblivion.
No Tridents were produced during the blockade because although the engines were built at the BSA works at Small Heath, frames and the final assembly took place at Meriden. There was a large stock of Trident engines awaiting chassis, but this forced the NVT concern to re-tool to produce frames and other chassis components in order to
