What gives??

[Sidecar Flip]

Cruising the forums and reading about the machine gun mufflers and having too much time to think about my younger days leads me to this.....

Speaking of Rocket 3, how does Triumph get to use a trade protected name. Remember, the Meriden 750-3 was called a Trident which I thought was a stupid name for a bike anyway, whereas the BSA (British Small Arms) 750-3 was the Rocket. When I think of "Trident", somehow I think of a fish market. Rocket 3 is virile and testosterone laden but Rocket 3 is a BSA, not a Triumph. We have an identity crisis here at least for me.

Did Mr. Bloor assume the trade dress right of BSA when he purchased Triumph? If he did, why are the names Thunderbolt, Victor or Lightning as well as model designations like A65T not used at all. Puzzling, at least to me, questions.

Harking back to the inception of the Hinkley Bonneville and the trade dress suit that General Motors/Pontiac Division brought against Mr. Bloor and it's ultimate settlement over the GM Bonneville even though Triumph Meriden used the name Bonneville before Pontiac made it a household word.

If, indeed Mr. Bloor assumes complete trade dress ownership of the Triumph nameplates past and present, then why did he choose to drop the swoosh on the tail of the Triumph logo in favor of an amputated tail and why does only the Rocket 3 name appear.

I am glad the bike is a Rocket 3. It is a ROCKET to be sure. If Bloor's design team had named it a Trident I probably would have bought a Road King. You know, Trident-fish market-aquatic, bad choice in nameplates.

I'd think that a set of vintage 3 port mufflers from the Trident or is it the Rocket 3 would look really neat on the new R3. E-Bay anyone?

Can anyone shed some light on all this or will it remain a Grey area?

See what happens when I start philosophizing about my younger, less enlightened days??

I'm also a pretty fair slinger of 10 dollar words. I spelled the "P" word correctly without spell check. To think I'm a truck driver.

I'm leading up to something and that is, Kenny Dreer bought the trade dress rights for Norton at considerable cost, however, the British trade dress rights weren't obtainable, hence Norton Villers or Norvin Motors. If Kenny didn't do it, how did Bloor??

 

[Toystoretom]

I can only remember some half truths, rumors and BS on some of this ... but here goes. If someone has factual info please correct me.

Bloor bought the old Meriden plant from the British Government to flatten it and put up condos, but with it he had to take the trademarks and rights to manufacture from the old Triumph Company, which didn't include BSA.

Parts of BSA are still in business but nothing to do with motorcycle building. The BSA trademarks ended up with a small company... was it SRM??? They didn't have a lot of cash and over the years have tried to build some handbuilt "BSA" specials, not too disimilar from the new Norton effort, but with the same results.

It is my guess that Mr. Bloor bought the Rocket III name from this small company who needed cash.

There are some great old BSA "names" that could be reused. I was always a BSA man myself (I haven't heard from the factory in awhile) but some names like "Gold Star" or "Rocket Gold Star" should only be put on bikes that would strike the fear of God into all other motorcycle manufacturers. The biggest mistake Triumph could make would be to use these on a lackluster bike. It might be best to leave them alone. I could see a 3 liter version of a 600 pound Rocket being called a "Rocket Gold Star", I am starting to drool...

http://www.bsaguns.co.uk/

Here is something I found....

Limited revival

The BSA company produced military motorcycles (with Rotax engines) and motorcycles for developing countries (with Yamaha engines) under the BSA name. In the later case the old "Bushman" name was recalled to duty - it had been previously used on high ground clearance Bantams sold for the likes of Australian sheep farmers.
In 1991, the BSA (motorcycle) Company merged with Andover Norton International Ltd., to form a new BSA Group, largely producing spare parts for existing motorcycles. In December 1994, BSA Group was taken over by a newly formed BSA Regal Group. The new company, based in Southampton, has a large spares business and has produced a number of limited-edition, retro-styled motorcycles.

Which comes from this website:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company#Limited_revival

And then this:

http://www.bsa-regal.co.uk/

http://www.srm-engineering.com/

The reason I keep draging SRM into this is because they make many BSA motorcycle "repop" parts and some great updated goodies that are far superior to the original parts made by the original BSA. I remember a magazine article (it was probably in some old issue of "Classic Bike") about SRM trying to build a new BSA model in an attempt to revive the BSA Marque. Maybe they were doing it in conjunction with the Regal group?

You speak of some trademark troubles with GM over the Bonnie name... I also heard a very bizzare story about a very similar episode with Ford, but I can find nothing on it so I am beginning to think its BS...

And here is CCM... makers of competition dirt bikes, who used BSA singles in many of their models (until just recently?). I have seen some of these in person and some are frightening..

http://www.ccm-motorcycles.net/index.htm

 

[Jamie]

Ancestry

I'd submit that the first Rocket ever might have been the top-of-the range BSA A10 "Road Rocket", launched at the 1954 Earls Court Show and which, 9 years later, culminated in the "Rocket Gold Star" model. A 350 cc vertical twin designed in 1938, enlarged to 500cc and eventually to 650cc, stressed to death, with a compression ratio bumped from 7.25 to 8 to 1 and... and 40 HP at 6'000 rpm's. And it went on... higher compression ratios... higher lift cams... larger bore Amal Monobloc carbs... (46 HP @ 6250 rpm's on the 1963 "Rocket Gold Star", with compression lifted to 9.0 to 1, built for two years only). Don' get me wrong: there were a few quantum technological leaps in- between. 1955 is a case in point: "the oil tank is of a completely new design with an increased capacity of 5 1/2 pints" .

BSA' s pathetic contribution to the the swan song of the British motorycle industry. And, ironically, the A10's successors, i.e. the A50 and A65 were no more reliable than the A10-series and vibrated a lot more.

Hey, I rode those bikes

 

[Pig9r]

Here's the Norton rotary



Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't BSA own Triumph through the 50's and 60's? Is it possible after BSA went under then the British gov. unified NortonVillarsTriumph that the rights to BSA motorcycles went with it? Since British Small Arms is still around I would tend to believe they sold off the motorcycle arm.

Bloor has the rights to the old Triumph logos too. They sell some clothing items with the old (20's) logo as well as the swoosh tail one also. I would assume the old Triumph names are part of the current company, they have since produced the Thunderbird, Speed Triple (instead of Speed Twin), Bonneville, Tiger, Trophy, Trident and Daytona, all 'old Triumph' names.

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Me Too!!

I'd submit that the first Rocket ever might have been the top-of-the range BSA A10 "Road Rocket", launched at the 1954 Earls Court Show and which, 9 years later, culminated in the "Rocket Gold Star" model. A 350 cc vertical twin designed in 1938, enlarged to 500cc and eventually to 650cc, stressed to death, with a compression ratio bumped from 7.25 to 8 to 1 and... and 40 HP at 6'000 rpm's. And it went on... higher compression ratios... higher lift cams... larger bore Amal Monobloc carbs... (46 HP @ 6250 rpm's on the 1963 "Rocket Gold Star", with compression lifted to 9.0 to 1, built for two years only). Don' get me wrong: there were a few quantum technological leaps in- between. 1955 is a case in point: "the oil tank is of a completely new design with an increased capacity of 5 1/2 pints" .

BSA' s pathetic contribution to the the swan song of the British motorycle industry. And, ironically, the A10's successors, i.e. the A50 and A65 were no more reliable than the A10-series and vibrated a lot more.

Hey, I rode those bikes

Jamie:

The reason I posted the thread in the first place is this basically isn't a mid 20's yuppie forum, rather, middle aged yuppie or wanna be yuppie forum.

Back in the 60's when I had my '68T120 and my 750 Atlas, Beezers were noted to be vibrators but so was the T120. To ride the Bonnie was to ride in a veritable blizzard of nuts and bolts unless judicious use of locktite and safety wire was employed to keep the bike together. I even lost the cap to the oil tank one time and numerous Zener diodes, light bulbs and many other parts. Never wind her up to 6500 and miss a shift at night or the "prince of Darkness" descended. The Norton at least had Roadholder forks and a Featherbed frame, but shook too as it was a pre-Isolastic non unit twin. When I bought my '03 Bonnie, I asked the dealer where the "kick starter"was. "No kick starters anymore. If you want one, you'll have to glue one on." My, how times have changed.

A65T's and 750 Rockets are very collectable, especially late 60's bikes just like the late 60's Meriden's. As always, I'm still looking for a '67 Norton P11A Scrambler. Almost bought one last year but the numbers didn't match. Went to Georgia to look at it.

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Here's the Norton rotary



Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't BSA own Triumph through the 50's and 60's? Is it possible after BSA went under then the British gov. unified NortonVillarsTriumph that the rights to BSA motorcycles went with it? Since British Small Arms is still around I would tend to believe they sold off the motorcycle arm.

Bloor has the rights to the old Triumph logos too. They sell some clothing items with the old (20's) logo as well as the swoosh tail one also. I would assume the old Triumph names are part of the current company, they have since produced the Thunderbird, Speed Triple (instead of Speed Twin), Bonneville, Tiger, Trophy, Trident and Daytona, all 'old Triumph' names.

Pig9r:

It's Villers. I believe you are right in the assumption that BSA owned Triumph in the mid 60's. I've read banter on other forums about the amputation of the swoosh. Interestingly, the sign on the Hinkley Factory has the swoosh. Finally, I haven't seen any reincarnation of the Trident anywhere. I still believe the Beezer 3 muffs would look sharp on the R3.

Of course I still like the Yamaha RD350 Kenny Roberts signature bike and the Kawasaki H2 750 triple. I had an H1 and if I had it today, I believe it would probably blister the Rocket if not obliterate it in a cloud of Klotz induced smoke.

In my eyes, the swoosh has more class and lineage thatn the stub.

 

[Toystoretom]

Bloor brought back the Trident... I had a 95 with this exact paint scheme...

http://www.bikez.com/motorcycles/triumph_trident_900_1995.php

It was a good motorcycle, a nice standard, all purpose sort of thing. I think they dropped it from the lineup around 2000, which is probably why they used the Rocket III name and not the Trident name. Rocket III is more outrageous anyway

I also had an H1... you are dreaming if you think it would take a Rocket. Mine had absolutely no bottom end, you had to get it to 6000 rpms or so before it woke up, and then it made what??? 60 horsepower??? Sure, it popped wheelies when it hit the powerband but you also couldn't turn corners with it. To go over 100 mph on one was pure suicide... the quick and the dead bike. It was fun though....

Mine had the CDI ignition... which leaked.... right into my leg while I was riding it. I thought I had a wasp up my pants at first... it stung the **** out of me. I found out later they had a recall on it just because of that. Who ever heard of a recall in the 70's? I had to replace the center piston and cylinder many times... I had a whole collection of them in my garage, it kind of looked like Burt Munroe's place. The bike was a pile of crap...from new... I sold it and never missed it. In fact... if I cleaned my garage out now I could probably come up with some of those pistons.

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Tomo:

Talk about pent up frustrations..........

I liked my Cow. The brakes sucked though. Give me an RD 350 or an MV Agusta.

You could run the H1 with the center cylinder completely out, just watch the conn rod wiggle up and down......

T'was a wheelie bike, just ask my wife. Almost skinned her buns more than once. Come to think of it, could use a little less today..........

Ah, flashbacks.....like windowpane an 'gold.

 

[Jamie]

The Bleeding That Could Not Stop

Triumph? Rocket? Bonneville? Whose names are these?

Let's knuckle down!

1. Triumph was sold to BSA in March 1951, not one or two decades later as has often been reported.

2. In 1956, both BSA and Triumph were integated within BSA Automotive Division, also encompassing Ariel, Carbodies of Conventry (yes, the builder of the familiar London taxicab) and the ailing... Daimler car company (sold to Jaguar in 1960)

3. In 1970, the BSA Group, parent of that automotive entity (and thus of Triumph) was losing GBP 4 to 5 mio. p.a. It was "sold" for ONE SYMBOLIC GBP to Manganese Bronze Holdings, already owner of Norton, AJS, Matchless, Villiers, Francis Barnett, James and Velocette (brands which, for the most part, had already gone belly up)

4. In 1973, what was left of the British motorcycle industry was going haywire. In yet another ill-fated effort to rescue it, a new company was formed, Norton Villiers Triumph Limited (NVT). NVT's equity was jointly owned by Manganese Bronze and BSA (BSA's presence as a distinct shareholder remains a mystery...)

5. NVT went bankrupt in 1977

I won't dwell on the takeover of the Triumph Meriden factory by its workers and the ensuing debacle. The episode has been copiously written about. The only message is that the history of the legal ownership of those brand names, trademarks, logos et all is awfully murky.

Jamie

 

[Sidecar Flip]

Encyclopedia Britannica a.k.a Jamie

Jamie:

You are the fountain of knowledge. Wish I still had my Velocette 500 Thruxton side valve. In retrospect, I was I'd kept them all. The Yamaha (3), the Triumph (2), the Norton (2), the Suzuki (3), the Hodaka (3), the Husky (1), the Maico (1), the Velo (1), the Bultaco (2), the Corvette (1) and the first 3 wives.

All that is left now is the T100/sidecar and the R3, and, a good fourth wife.