Skip to product information
1 of 1

TRIUMPH TRIDENT AND BSA ROCKET 3: THE COMPLETE STORY

Author: Peter Henshaw

Hardcover

175 pages

11903

2 total reviews


Membership Price:
$31.44

Members save: $5.55 (15.0%)
List Price:
Regular price $36.99 USD
Regular price Sale price $36.99 USD
Sale On Backorder
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Why You Should Become A Member

With Motorcycle Classics, you will read articles from collectors and enthusiasts, dreamers and restorers, newcomers, and lifelong gearheads who love the sound and the beauty of classic bikes. Motorcycle Classics brings the most brilliant, unusual, and popular motorcycles ever made right to you! You will experience the art and the attitude, the life, and the legends of these memorable machines when you subscribe today.

Your All-Access Benefits Include:
  • One-year subscription
  • 6 Print + Digital issues
  • Unlimited access to MotorcycleClassics.com
  • Special discounts to the Motorcycle Classics Store
  • Access to videos covering ride reviews, project bikes, event coverage & museum tours
  • Exclusive online content - restoration projects, gear reviews, and more!

This story is like something out of Hollywood. In the mid-1960s, BSA/Triumph learned that Honda was to launch a 750cc motorcycle that would clearly outclass its 650cc twins. Luckily, Meriden's top two designers – Bert Hopwood and Doug Hele – have been toying with the idea of a 3-cylinder 750. Could it work? The prototype is fast and intoxicating to ride, but delays mean the Triumph Trident and BSA Rocket 3 have only been on the market a few weeks when the smoother Honda 750 comes along. The British bikes might be fast, but they lack sophistication, and no one loves their oddball styling. Sales are so slow that production is suspended for eight months. BSA/Triumph fights back with a factory race team that sweeps all before 1971, including a 1–2–3 at the Daytona 200.

While BSA collapses, Triumph struggles on, launching the factory custom Hurricane and updating the T150 Trident with a 5-speed gearbox and front disc brake. The Meriden factory sit-in stops Trident production, but bikes are rolling off the line a few months later at Small Heath, and the electric-start T160 is launched. To no avail – the odds were against them, and in early 1975 Trident production finally stopped. But just as in Hollywood, that's not the end of the story. Les Williams and Norman Hyde keep the Trident flag flying through the 1980s and beyond. The Trident and Rocket 3 Owners Club is formed, bringing together enthusiasts for the iconic triples. And in 1992 (and again in 2020), the reborn Triumph company launched 3-cylinder bikes that carry on the Trident name.

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
100%
(2)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
B
Brian Rutherford

Very thorough history with great pictures

g
gary cordeiro
Good book

Very interesting

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
100%
(2)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
B
Brian Rutherford

Very thorough history with great pictures

g
gary cordeiro
Good book

Very interesting