Triumph Bonneville bonny bike from birth

Triumph’s latest parallel twin is a homage to one of motorcycling’s greatest machines. Paul Owen takes it for a ride.

IWOULD like to think that I was a witness to the birth of the modern version of Triumph’s classic Bonneville. It happened in an Auckland restaurant in the late 1990s, rather than at the Hinckley factory.

Triumph’s New Zealand distributor, Ian Beckhaus, suddenly halted my conversation with the factory’s export manager, Ross Clifford, about why the brand should honour its heritage and build a parallel twin-powered Bonneville model by producing the photo of then-new Kawasaki W650.

‘‘Just slap a Triumph badge on this thing,’’ Mr Beckhaus urged Mr Clifford, ‘‘and it will double your sales in this market.’’

When the 21st-century version of the Bonneville duly appeared three years later in 2001, that’s exactly what happened: a virtual doubling of Triumph’s New Zealand sales, rather than any blatant plagiarism of Kawasaki’s work.

Instead of taking the latter dishonest route, Triumph built its own good, honest motorcycle, albeit one that lacked the elegant aesthetics of the original Bonneville’s Edward Turner-designed engine and one that delivered its modest power so gently that it wouldn’t frighten anyone.

However, the first made-inHinckley Bonneville did get the basics right: the styling mimicked the original right down to the peashooter exhaust mufflers, and it didn’t leak oil, break down or vibrate light-bulb filaments loose like the bike it was paying homage to. Born-again boomer-age bikers consequently flocked to the new parallel-twin as if it was a free Leonard Cohen concert.

Meanwhile, thanks in some part to the success of the Bonneville, Mr Beckhaus has continued his long run as Triumph’s most successful export market distributor, Mr Clifford has gone on to secure a cushier job with less travel at Victory/Indian, and I continue to enjoy the odd drink, with either picking up the bar tab.

There’s just one thing wrong with the tale of the born-again Bonneville: the resurrected bike should have been better.

Triumph did correct some of the bike’s sins in 2009 with an engine upgrade that expanded its cubic capacity from 790cc to 865cc.

After-market exhausts: Megaphone-shaped silencers look and sound better than the standard units, but may also contribute to the yellowing of the downpipes, just as they did in the 1960s.