MANX GRAND PRIX SUCCESS

The company also began the postwar period with success in the 1946 Manx Grand Prix for Irishman, Ernie Lyons, who rode a Tiger 100 fitted with the square light-alloy cylinder barrel and heads originally used on wartime fan-cooled stationary generator units because of their lighter weight and better heat dissipation. Triumph boss, Edward Turner, had little interest in spending the company’s money on racing but he could see the publicity value of private riders doing the winning on the factory’s behalf. As a result, Triumph put a copy of Lyons’ machine into limited production and called it the Triumph Grand Prix. This bike was intended purely for racing and between 150 and 200 of them were built between 1947 and 1950. The GP model couldn’t match the speed of the Manx Nortons but was popular with privateer riders because of its lower price and easier maintenance. In 1951 it was replaced by a new version of the Tiger 100 that was offered with a factory ‘race kit’ for the ‘clubman’ rider. Up until 1951, Triumph riders had been unable to use the GP model in the Clubman’s TT on the Isle of Man as it was a pure racer. Clubman’s TT entrants up until that year were restricted to using the iron-barrelled Tiger 100, as the square-finned alloy barrels of the GP racer were not even as catalogued ‘upgrades’. Even so, the Tiger 100 riders from 1947 to 1950 fared pretty well in the Clubman’s against the opposition of the day. Allan Jefferies finished second to the Norton of Eric Briggs in the first race in 1947 and was second again in 1949 to another Norton International. He, of course, was the patriarch of the famous Yorkshire family of TT stars, his sons Tony and Nick and his grandson, the late and much-missed David. The Norton that finished ahead of Allan in 1949 was ridden by a certain Geoff Duke, a Norton trials rider marking his road-racing debut with an Isle of Man win. Geoff, of course, went on to win the Manx Grand Prix later that year and then five more TT races and six World Championships. No disgrace for Allan and Triumph, then, in giving best to that superstar in the making in 1949. In 1950 it looked as though the Tiger 100 would score its first win in the Clubman’s as Ivan Wicksteed (one of the riders in the prewar Brooklands record session that won Triumph the Maudes Trophy) had a lead of more than three minutes as he started his fourth and final lap. But only a mile or so later he was out, retiring at Quarter Bridge with a split fuel tank. That left his fellow Triumph rider, Allen Hill, battling with Norton-mounted Phil Carter for the win over the final lap. In the end the Norton man took the honours by 26 seconds.

So Triumph Tiger 100s had always been in contention for the Senior (500cc) Clubman’s TT win since the very first race – and there were few who would have bet against a Triumph victory in 1951. That year the production Tiger 100 road bike had gained a new close-finned, die-cast alloy cylinder barrel and head, far superior in both construction and design to the old generatorbased components used on the Grand Prix model. In addition, the T100 race kit had many components that had been developed for the GP Triumph, including the E3134 camshafts that were later also used on the 650cc Bonneville. The rest of the kit included twin carburettors with a single remote float chamber, improved valves and springs, high compression pistons and open megaphone exhausts. Proof of just how good that kit was in boosting engine power comes from the results of both the 1951 and 1952 IOM Clubman’s races.