RealClassic – August 2019

wrongat your peril,and never presentan
opinion asafact, we say. Occasionally...
Theeffecthereist hatI’ll not nowpresent
youwith apotted production historyof
the Trident, norits impressivecompetition
history,nor thenamesofi ts designteams and
whichkind of dogthey owned –things like
that. But Iwillwaddle through bits about the
actual machine design, beforewriting about
riding–which is what Ienjoythe most.
Foralong time,during the dying days of
the classic industryand afteritsfinal,terminal
struggles,itw as somehowfashionableto
criticise theTridentengine asa‘T100 and a
half ’. That ’s inaccurate and unkind.Journalists
toooften aimforacheap shot oracheap
laugh, and this is the case here. At least it kept
Tridentvalues low, kept them affordable,until
relativelyrecently.
In fact, the engine designisv eryclever .It’s
easy to dismissits unusualbottom end design
as beinganonsense (‘three crankcase halves’ FrankWhas along historywith Tridents.Here’s a

reimportedUST150V,completewith itsUS plate,aleft-

side mirror andthe loudestexhaus tknown in triple-

land .Our buddyJohn Bprovidedthe 1990 grasstrack

riding shot!

The UK barsareoddlyup-tipped but areeasy

onthewristsandarms.Footrestsareatleast

t

builta

TRIUMPH T150 TRIDENT

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