Best bets on tomorrow’s classics: 1976-1980 Triumph T140V Bonneville

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Good T140 Bonnevilles don't seem to be hard to find, but they don't seem to stay on the market for long, either. Photo by Richard Backus

Triumph T140V

Years produced: 1973-1980
Total production: N/A
Claimed power: 50hp @ 7,000rpm (1976)
Top speed: 110mphEngine type: 744cc, air-cooled two valve per cylinder parallel twin
Transmission: Five-speed
Weight: 188kg (414lb)(w/half-full tank)
MPG: 40-50
Price then: $1,995 (1976)
Price now: $2,000-$5,000

The 1976-1980 Triumph T140V Bonnevilles are great rideable classics and are much more affordable than their earlier counterparts.

The Seventies were not good years for Triumph. By 1972 Triumph, arguably the personification of motorcycles and motorcycling, had been eclipsed by a hoard of Asian upstarts, despite 70 years of manufacturing tradition behind the fabled company.

In some ways, Triumph had been its own worst enemy. An entrenched, misplaced belief within the British motorcycle industry in its own superiority had resulted in outdated product, just as new rivals were launching the most technologically exciting motorcycles ever seen. Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Yamaha were spearheading a revolution, changing and innovating their products yearly. But in 13 years of production, Triumph’s iconic Bonneville, introduced to rave reviews in 1959, had changed little. At Triumph, it appeared that evolution, not revolution, was the order of the day.

The Bonneville desperately needed a shot in the arm to remain competitive, and Triumph belatedly responded in 1973 by upping the Bonnie’s 650cc engine to 744cc and, finally, fitting a five-speed transmission in place of the old four-speed.

Unfortunately, the “new” Bonnie, dubbed the T140V, suffered under Triumph’s heavy load. That same year, Triumph announced the closure of the Meriden plant where the Bonnie was built, prompting the workforce there to wage an 18-month strike, during which all Bonneville production ceased.

This could have been the end of Triumph, and the company’s future looked bleak at best. But new hope came in the spring of 1975, when the striking workers formed the Meriden Cooperative. With loans from the government, the new company renewed production of the T140V.

The great Triumph twin got a new lease on life, as once again new T140Vs started rolling off the assembly line.

Unlike its former stewards, the Meriden Cooperative saw the need to update and improve the Bonnie, while at the same time playing to its time-honored strengths of simplicity, agility and light weight.