1997 Triumph Speed Triple – $12,500 obo.

SELLER SAYS: Motorcycle in excellent condition. Dealer service history up to 50,000 km. I have my own records of servicing and maintenance completed after that. Bike is fitted with Triumph Sebring race kit exhaust and headers. Complete original twin system to go with the bike. Currently fitted with single seat cowl however pillion grab rail and rear rack provided. Motorcycle has been recently serviced and on full Queensland rego. Motorcycle runs and rides faultlessly. Contact Peter on 0413 926 847 (Sunshine Coast, Queensland.)

EDITOR TERLICK SAYS: The reincarnation of Triumph motorcycles is truly one of motorcycling’s greatest success stories. While Harley-Davidson and Royal Enfield have survived the rollercoaster since virtually the birth of the industry, very few marques have died and reborn with success. Norton’s comeback has been very fragile and MV Agusta has been glorious but unconvincing, economically at least. But Triumph — sick and dying through the late 1970s and dead and buried by the mid-1980s — has thundered back. In 2024, the most recent reliable figures I can find, Triumph sold more than 100,000 bikes. (As a matter of interest, MV Agusta sold fewer than 5,000, Ducati a few more than 50,000, Royal Enfield sold about 1 million, and Honda sold – wait for it – 19.4 million.) The modern Triumph story revolves around a shameless Japanesation of the British brand, after company saviour John Bloor thoroughly studied the Japanese way of building and selling motorcycles — including meticulous quality control and using a small number of engines and frames packaged in multiple ways to create different machines — before finally going to market. Right from the relaunch in 1990, Bloor demanded and built bikes that were very well made and delivered the big-fun experience that riders wanted, making them worthy competitors against the bike behemoths from Japan. But he had one ingredient that the Japanese did not have – British history. And he milked it for all it was worth. Recycling old model names reinforced the notion that good old Triumph was back in town. The Bonneville, king of the empire for so many decades, returned with a styling flavour that was utterly convincing as an evolved Bonnie and not just a modern bike with an old name. This lovely Speed Triple, selling from Queensland, delivers another brilliant market design job. Harking back to two machines from the Triumph story, the Speed Triple remembers both the wildly successful Speed Twin (father of all the British parallel twins) and the courageous three-cylinder Trident that went toe-to-toe with the early Japanese four-cylinder machines of the early ’70s. And, like the Bonneville, it successfully merges all that history with dollops of modern technology to create a big, ballsy British bovver-boy of a bike. Naked and fast, solid and reliable, the Speed Triple will take you and your bestie on the highway, go bonkers in the twisties with your mates on their Ducatis, and still show up for work on Monday. This bike of Peter’s, one of our regular sellers, presents very nicely indeed with a good record of maintenance, some tasty extras, and a kerbside appeal that belies its near-30-years of age. Nice.