From a 1954 issue of Motorcyclist Magazine. Based on a experimental Turner design using half of a Square four. A Triumph with a hand shifter. Hand shifting is too slow for my taste and the performance of this motor was nothing like the power of the real Thunderbird. It probably needed a bigger carb and lumpy cams.Thursday, April 9, 2009
1933 T-Bird?
From a 1954 issue of Motorcyclist Magazine. Based on a experimental Turner design using half of a Square four. A Triumph with a hand shifter. Hand shifting is too slow for my taste and the performance of this motor was nothing like the power of the real Thunderbird. It probably needed a bigger carb and lumpy cams.
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I`d heard of this bike , but never seen a picture before .
ReplyDeleteWhen you read the books on Turner , it always seems he considered 500cc to be the optimum size for a vertical twin and only allowed the T`bird under pressure from US customers . Maybe he actually wanted 650cc all along ?
There was a good article on a restored version of one of these in one of the glossy British bike mags some years ago. I think I have it, but it is buried under stacks and stacks of magazines and surrounded by boxes and peanut tanks right now. I almost had a handle on things until I got a line on a old britbike shop liquidation from a guy I met at the San Jose Clubman's Meet. Now things are getting out of control again...
ReplyDeleteI may be mistaken, but I believe this was a Val Page design, not an E.T. Turner was against the 650s, and at the time was designing for Ariel. Though he took over for Triumph a few years later, Triumph scrapped the Page twin before E.T.s arrival. If I recall correctly, there wasn't any model continuity between the Page twin and the Speed Twin Turner designed in 1937. Oh yeah, and the Thunderbird name was opposed by Turner also. But, I wasn't even born for another 45 years anyway... I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteI don't think your mistaken. The article says the design was based on a Edward Turner experiment, not actually designed by him. No continuity either, the Turner designed Speed Twin and later Thunderbird were originals and kicked ass on this old clunker.
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