Triumph

The philosophy, as I read it

Triumph's second life under John Bloor has been built on two ideas: the three-cylinder engine as the perfect road motor, and the Bonneville as a heritage brand that must ride like a modern bike. The Street Triple is the best-balanced middleweight on sale, and the modern classics have the finish quality of bikes twice their price. Triumph does not chase peak numbers; it chases the feeling of a well-made object.

History in a paragraph

Founded in Coventry in 1902, Triumph built the Speed Twin in 1937 that defined the British parallel twin, and the Bonneville in 1959 that defined cool. The original company collapsed in 1983; John Bloor bought the name and relaunched it in Hinckley in 1991 with modular triples and fours. Today Triumph builds around 140,000 bikes a year, most of them in Thailand, and supplies the engine for Moto2.