Bendy toy
Registered user
Please read my post a little more carefully and maybe look at British bike manufacturing history.
I said - Quote: Meriden Triumph Bonneville
Here's a history lesson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Bonneville
The original Triumph company had its factory at Meriden. The bikes were great in their day and the Bonneville was a stunning product in 1959. However, bad management and nil investment sealed their fate. Basically the same bike was still being made 24 years later on the original factory equipment. The factory leaned heavily on its heritage name but closed in 1983. Their last products were indeed junk.
Meriden pulled out the stops for the 1977 Silver Jubilee edition but was only any good because the workers put huge effort into the special edition bikes. The design (and indeed the whole factory) was seriously out of date and could not compete with imported machinery. The Silver Jubilee Bonnevilles are now rare collectors bikes, but the average late model Bonneville isnt worth the bother.
John Bloor bought the name and set up a new factory in Hinkley in 2001. Apart from the names, his bikes have no connection whatsoever with old Meriden stuff. Wikipedia says that today's Bonnevilles evolved from the old bikes. In reality they are a copy the old style but mechanically have no similarities.
