Spicers Auctioneers Ltd
Lot 1061
11938 Triumph Tiger 100, 500 cc. (see text). Registration number EYV 687. Frame number TH 6362. Engine number 40 T100 29620.Although Edward Turner’s Triumph Speed Twin caused a sensation when it appeared at the 1937 Motorcycle Show, few of its admirers can have guessed how influential the design would prove to be. True, there had been vertical twins before; indeed, Turner’s predecessor at Meriden - Val Page - had designed one a few years previously, but Triumph’s newcomer established a formula that would be adopted by all of Britain’s major motorcycle manufacturers in the succeeding decade. And whereas previous vertical twins had suffered from excess bulk, Turner’s was lighter and narrower across the crankcase than the contemporary single-cylinder Tiger 90, whose cycle parts it shared, and from certain angles looked just like a twin-port single. This was just what the conservatively minded motorcycling public wanted and the Speed Twin proved an enormous success for Triumph, lifting the company out of the economic doldrums and setting it on the road to future prosperity. Performance proved exemplary for a road-going 500, around 85mph being attainable by the Speed Twin while the Tiger 100 sports version was even faster.Technical changes over the Speed Twin included forged alloy pistons, a very early use of the technology. The cylinders were forged in a single casting and held in place by eight studs, instead of the Speed Twin’s six. The Tiger 100 featured a single Amal carburetor, possible thanks to the 360-degree firing interval of the two cylinders. Finished in silver and costing £5 more, new features included a larger fuel tank and detachable silencers, the result being a machine that could touch 100mph in road trim and exceed it with the silencer end-caps removed.In March 1939, Triumph came up with an unorthodox launch of the new Tiger 100. Using a Tiger 100 and a Speed Twin straight from dealers showrooms, endurance was tested with a run of over 1,800 miles from John o'Groats to Land's End in Cornwall then to the Brooklands circuit for six hours of continuous high-speed laps, where riders Ivan Wicksteed and David Whitworth averaged 78.5 miles per hour with a final lap of 88.5 miles per hour, winning Triumph the Maudes Trophy. The Tiger 100's sporting pretensions were later further proven through Freddie Clarke's 1939 lap record at Brooklands of 118.02 miles per hour on a bored-out 503 cc Tiger 100.When production resumed in 1946, the T100 reappeared with telescopic forks in place of the original girders, and separate dynamo and magneto instead of the pre-war version's magdyno.EYV was acquired by our vendor in the late 1970's, the frame is a 1938 Speed Twin and he painstakingly built a 1940 Tiger 100 with the correct engine as noted above. He had it registered in 1983 with DVLA.He went to great detail, the mixture levers have Amal stamped on them, the tool box has a piano hinge, all nuts and bolts are period correct and only found on pre war machines. He fitted a five speed gearbox but the original four speed is included with the sale. Also of note is that the engine has a bronze head fitted.Over the years the machine has only received regular maintenance and has now covered some 82,000. In 2005, with a friend on a 1940 Speed Twin, over a period of a week, he completed the same run as the Maudes Trophy of 1938, ending up at Brooklands.Now at the ripe age of 91 he has decided to part with the bike, he last rode it in 2019 and when the cataloguer attended he kicked it over on the third attempt, impressive!Sold with the R.F.60 V5, V5C, many tax dics, MOT's, original manuals, photocopied articles, Spicers are honoured to have been asked to find the Tiger 100 a new home after 50 years of ownership.
