Back in 2005, My friend told me about an old pre-unit Triumph that his friend was looking to sell a while back. My friend was unclear about what it was, and the guy selling it didn’t really know either. It was a 1952 something. Somehow it got into my head that it was a 1952 6T Thunderbird, like the one Marlin Brando rode in “The Wild Ones”.
I had recurring dreams about it for months before I finally arranged to go look at it. I don’t remember how much he was asking, or if there was even a price. It was at his parent’s house, and he was out of state, but when I saw it, it was the biggest letdown. After months of dreaming about a neglected but intact 6T, what rolled out of the garage was a chopped, raked and bondo filled hodgepodge of parts with a triumph engine in the middle. The engine and destroyed frame were probably the only Triumph bits there.
My dreams were gutted. I told him “honestly, with what’s here and usable, I don’t think I could give you more than $150 for it”, thinking that he’d turn me down. To my suprise, he said “yes”, and I reluctantly loaded the thing into my truck, along with a couple milk crates of miscellaneous chopper parts painted bright green.
What that mess turned out to be was a 1954 TR5 Trophy, the last of the rigid bikes, in a chopped 1960 duplex frame with a hard tail added. An autopsy revealed that it was probably built as a flat track bike in the 50s. As all the manufacturers were going to swing arm frames, the flat trackers still liked the hard tail, and it was one of the last to make the transition. It wasn’t until a couple years later that I realized that I probably got a good deal, and what I wanted to do was return it to it’s flat track glory days.
I wish I could show you a picture of the finished bike, but it’s still waiting to become a project. Finding a frame has been difficult. My dad bought one off ebay, but he didn’t really know what he was looking for, and it ended up being a mid 50s swing arm frame with alterations for who knows what? Maybe someone stuck an Indian engine in it?
He bought a second one that was a whole, solid swing arm frame, and now destroyed, but that’s not the bike I want to build. So I started looking for TR5 frames. The first part of the TR5 that’s different, is that the chain case is just a touch shorter, so I looked forever on ebay, and eventually found an inner case. Then a while later I found a full set. So now I have an extra.
Same theme for my frame search so far. The TRW is the same frame essentially, so when a TRW frame came up, I bought that. But that’s only the front half. I’ve been looking for a rear for a while, but haven’t found one. There has been a full frame for $1400 on ebay for a while. It’s probably worth it too, I just haven’t been able to justify getting it, especially when I have all these other frames sitting around that I should probably sell.