‘How PCP can save your bacon’

The other day I popped into a Triumph dealership and something caught my eye: the price on a Speed Triple 1200 RR. I’ve said before that I reckon Triumph have totally misread the market with this overly sporty retro and it seems like I was right as the bike was being advertised for £14,000 – which is £4000 off its RRP! And the dealer said he’d take £13,000 (and a loss) if it was offered to him just to get shot of it. All of which got me thinking, what impact would the Speed Triple RR’s lack of success have on owners who bought one new in 2022?

After a three-year finance period (ending in 2025), anyone who paid outright or went with HP finance is now left with a bike that I expect will be worth around £9000 – and be very hard to off-load, especially if you have put a few miles on it. Those who went for PCP are in a better place. The final payment on an RR was £10,737 in 2022, so they can decide not to keep the bike, hand the problem on to the dealer and walk away roughly £7263 down – even if they have done 12,000 miles. That’s one of the major benefits of PCP over HP, you don’t get stuck with a bike that has plummeted in value.

From what I’m led to believe, production of the RR has now been stopped and it will be replaced by a higher-spec naked. I’m not surprised, it’s the machine Triumph should have built in the first place, but I guarantee one thing: it won’t have a price of £13,000. I wonder how much it’d cost to convert an RR into a naked…