Beschreibung:

The first Triumph motorcycle of 1902 used a Belgian Minerva engine, but within a few years the Coventry firm - originally bicycle manufacturers - was building its own power units. The company was soon involved in racing, and the publicity generated by competition success - Jack Marshall won the 1908 Isle of Man TT’s single-cylinder class for Triumph - greatly stimulated sales. By the outbreak of the Great War, Triumph’s reputation for quality and reliability was well established, leading to substantial orders from the military for its newly introduced 4hp model. The latter was based on the 3½hp model that first appeared in 1907. Originally of 453cc, its sidevalve engine was enlarged to 476cc in 1908 and finally to 499cc in 1910 before being superseded by the 550cc 4hp version in 1914. Equipped with three-speed Sturmey-Archer gearbox, it was this revised 4hp - the Model H - that did such sterling service in WWI, some 30,000 ‘Trusty Triumphs’ seeing action with Allied forces. This Triumph Model H formerly belonged to, and was restored by, the late Hubert Oliver Twitchen. Known to friends and contemporaries as ‘Twitch’, Hubert Twitchen was highly influential within Veteran and Vintage motorcycling circles from the early 1940s onwards, and later organised the Sunbeam MCC’s Veteran Register. A civil servant with an encyclopaedic knowledge older motorcycles, he set new standards for the restoration of machines to original condition, influencing the likes of Jeff Clew who dedicated his book ‘The Restoration of Vintage and Thoroughbred Motorcycles’ to Twitch, who is pictured together with ‘DO 275’ on page 7. He is commemorated today by the VMCC’s ‘Twitchen Cup’, awarded for excellence in restoration. This Model H was Twitch’s penultimate restoration before he died in 1976. The engine number ‘55257 CTP’ indicates a unit of 1916 manufacture, and Hubert Twitchen is on record as having stated that he understood that the Triumph had remained in Army service after WWI and been rebuilt - probably by the factory - around a replacement frame circa 1923, hence the word ‘Renovated’ within the tank transfer. The first date of registration recorded in this machine’s accompanying old-style logbook (issued 1962) is 21st February 1921, this being shortly after the introduction of the Roads Act of 1920, which required local councils to register all vehicles at the time of licensing and to allocate a separate number to each. (Many vehicles, although in existence for several years in some cases, were only registered for the first time after the Act’s passing). Comerfords is the only owner other than Hubert Twitchen recorded, the well-known Thames Ditton dealership having acquired the Triumph following Twitch’s death. Other documentation on file records that the registration mark ‘DO 275’ was originally issued to a Sunbeam car in 1911 and that the latter was broken up in 1926. Brian Verrall acquired the Triumph from John Comerford in 2000, although it was not registered (to Margaret Verrall) until 2002. In that same year ‘DO 275’ was featured in The Classic MotorCycle magazine’s August edition (copy available). The Triumph was ridden by journalist Roy Poynting, who observed that its obvious non-standard elements – chromium-plated brightwork and a Smiths Chronometric speedometer to name but two – reflected Twitch’s concern that his machines should be practical transport, not merely museum pieces. Representing a wonderful opportunity to acquire one of the Vintage movement’s most celebrated ‘Trusty Triumphs’, the machine is offered with the aforementioned documentation; assorted correspondence; (copy) magazine articles and book extracts; copy, old-style Swansea V5 and current V5C registration documents.