TINY TIGERS!

These two pretty T20 Tiger Cubs from 1960/1961 display the strengths and weaknesses of Edward Turner’s best shot at the lightweight market.

Angela Carter ticks many of the boxes from the original brief for Triumph’s Tiger Cub. She’s young, and keen on Triumphs – her 250cc Tigress scooter featured in TCM March 2019, and there’s a 3TA 350cc twin awaiting completion. And she’s female – the Cub’s unisex intention was to appeal to girls as well as boys, like 1950s scooters were doing.

And finally, like Cub creator Edward Turner, she’s not that long in the leg. As she puts it plainly: “The Cub is small enough for short people.”

Developed from the late-1952 150cc Terrier, the bored and stroked 199cc Tiger Cub had joined it for 1954. In 1957 the full swinging-arm frame was introduced. Cub annual sales for the industry’s record year of 1959 topped 10,000 for the first time, with Roy Peplow’s SSDT victory on a works model T20T not hurting. They exceeded that figure for the years until 1962, effectively meaning that about one in every three Triumphs sold in those years was a Cub. By mid-1964 over 100,000 of the little singles had been produced, but it was downhill from then on, with just some 15,000 made between the unpopular move of production to Small Heath and the Bantam Cub for 1965, and the last trickle in 1970.

Tiger test

Bend-swinging was a real pleasure. Through a village I also found that the brakes were well set up and effective. After enjoying the engine’s sweetness cruising, in the last mile before our parking spot I pushed it a little, the speedo indicating a wavering mid-50 (T20 top speed had been 67mph when new), it still felt solid.

I agreed with Angela that the red Cub is the sweeter ride.