Post Listing Update: Well, that’s seriously disappointing. Bidding got up to over $33,000 but with less than a day to go this Trident was pulled off of eBay because “the item is no longer available.” Looks like the seller got an offer he or she couldn’t refuse, but I do not know what the dollar figure was.
The 70s were a tough decade for the declining British motorcycling industry. Facing a Japanese tsunami, most of the British makers could not compete technically nor financially. After the liquidation of its parent company (BSA), Triumph was bought by Norton Villiers to form NVT in July 1973. For financial reasons, the company had to downsize in order to survive and close one of the three factories they had. It was decided to close Triumph’s factory located in Meriden. After a long fight between the workers and NVT that even implied political stakes, the Meriden Co-op, owned by the workers themselves and financially backed by the Labor Government. In 1975, they released an evolution of the T150, the T160 Trident.
The bike was promising despite a very limited budget to develop and build it as Triumph created a bike with real upgrades compared to the former T150. One of the most important was obviously the electric starter, mandatory to keep up with the Japanese and their advanced technology. To this end, the cylinders were canted forward to leave some room for the electric starter. The design was modernized as well, especially with a different exhaust. However, although Triumph put all of their strength towards the production of the T160, they did not have the financial and technical resources to produce enough bikes and flood the market. On top of that, the bike had a lot of issues with the new electric starter. To get more information about the T160, please read Classic British Motorcycles.
The Trident presented here is actually brand new in its crate. The seller started to uncrate it just to partially check the bike and the numbers, but left the biggest part of the crate for the buyer.
Find this crated Trident in Manasquan, New Jersey with bidding up to $23,600