TRIUMPH T595
Niall Mackenzie and his accidental project bike.
This is a bit of a sea change for CMM. This is the first Hinckley Triumph restoration ever done for the magazine. Well, when we say ‘restoration’, it’s more of a ‘rebuild’, as it’s a bit of an accident that we’re doing this at all. Isn’t it Niall? Niall? Yes, we’d best let Niall Mackenzie explain further. “I was instructing at one of my trackdays when a pair of lads wanted some one-to-one tuition. Well, one of them offered me his bike – a P-reg Triumph T595 Daytona – I figured it wouldn’t be an issue. Well, I’ll never do that again! I crashed at Goddards and the bike was very much the worse for wear. I’m a gentleman if nothing else, so I humbly made an offer to the unfortunate owner, who took me up on it and now I have a 1997 Triumph T595 Daytona to get back to its best: but Bertie said these are going to be classics right? So there’s no worries about my grand outlay, right?” Erm… of course not mate. We are going to stick to our guns. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: this model of Hinckley Triumph is going to be a sure-fire classic, so don’t worry Niall, your money is safe. Snapper Gary D and I took a look over the bike while we were about to head out for a bag of chips with Niall on his Fizzy (see next month’s issue) and checking the bike over, the issues are clear. Unlike a normal resto where it’s a case of putting things back the way they were, the bike itself was clearly in good condition before the off, so it’s more a case of putting things back the way they should be. All the normal gravel rash issues are on display on the poor old Trumpet: scratched and chamfered bodywork, levers and bar-ends chamfered, engine cases/water pump housing scratched, fork bottoms damaged, pegs and levers bent or snapped, mirrors snapped and cracked bodywork. Looking at the bike itself, you could see that it was fairly well looked-after, but it wasn’t the most original T595. Other things must have occurred during the bike’s life, as it has picked up newer body panels with the later-style ‘955’ logos on it. It does have the desirable factory
carbon end can, doesn’t have tatty, naff, teeny-tiny indicators, although it does have wheel rim tape, so a good return to standard along with standard/period panels and a good clean up could see Niall having a bike to be proud of. Will he make money on it? Hmmm… that’s hard to say: at the moment good, original T595s are still a lot of bike for the money, with examples going from around £1500-£2500 or more for the newer 955i. That’s still cheap, even compared to Fireblades of the same era. Niall will need all of that Scottish frugality if he’s to make a few quid on this one. Or – better still – he simply takes her back to clean, standard and sparkling and then puts her under a dust cover next to his RD400, RD350LC and Fizzy. A year or so could see prices start to head north. Of course, the ultimate irony is that Niall was actually offered a complete, low-mile minter for just £2000 a year or so ago. The T595 was a ground-breaking bike for the Hinckley concern. It was a move away from the modular approach of the earlier T300 series and its first big sportsbike. You’ll see on some of Niall’s panels the logo ‘955i’ and this name change came about in 1999 when the soon-to-be-released TT600, a sports middleweight, was released. The firm didn’t want people confusing the bigger sports bike with its little brother. One thing Niall may want to check on the history is whether the frame was swapped. The swoopy aluminium frame was the subject of a frame recall early on just after launch, when some allegedly
snapped near the headstock. Triumph did a great job of turning the negative of a recall into the positive of keeping all new owners informed. When the frame was swapped the dealer would give the owner a letter proving that the job had been done. It will be interesting to see if Niall has that in the paperwork. The bike will be a classic, being such an important milestone for Triumph. It’s a good sportsbike, with around 120-130bhp
and good road manners, even if it’s not quite as sharp as a comparable Fireblade or R1 from the same era. But then that’s not the point: the T595/955i offered the big sportsbike buyer of the 1990s something British and there’s little to compare with a big triple on the pipe. We shall see if that motor is okay, (fourth gear could be fragile) and the single-sider chain adjusters could seize! Let the refurb commence!