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rossover cars are becoming ever
more popular, as passenger car
platforms are increasingly used
to create a multipurpose vehicle
with the space and practicality of an SUV,
but the comfort and handling of a sedan. The
same thing with bikes – the most obvious
example being BMW’s succession of best-
selling GS models, or Honda’s NC750X and
CB500X, all attempting to deliver the best of
both worlds without one compromising the
other.
But now Triumph has delivered a pair
of crossover models that seek to answer
a different question: how to combine
retro cool with modern functionality in a
dual-purpose motorcycle. Call it a crossover
Crossover. That’s the conundrum that faced
Triumph’s chief engineer, Stuart Wood,
and his R&D team three and a half years
ago when they began work on creating the
new-for-2019 Scrambler 1200 XC and XE
variants. To do so, they took the all-new
1,198 cc, liquid-cooled, parallel-twin T
engine they’d just launched to power the
new generation of larger-capacity
Bonneville models, headed by
the Thruxton café racer.
Rather than concoct-
ing a powered-up
version of the 900 cc
Street Scrambler,
which, just as it
says on the label,
has only minimal
off-road preten-
sions, Wood’s
design brief was
to develop a pair
of crossover bikes
with the Bonneville
family’s traditional
twin-shock neo-classic
styling, and that were just
as adept both on- and off-road
as the company’s thoroughly
modern 800XR/XC dual-purpose triples. So
in this way, Triumph is seeking to restate the
genuine nature of the Scrambler nametag
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before BMW or Ducati ever used the name
today on what amount to custom street
models.
Scrambler History
In doing this, Triumph has taken another
long look in its corporate rearview mirror
to launch these modern classics as a tribute
to one of the most successful models in its
1960s classic-era lineup, the go-anywhere
Trophy street enduro. Amid all the furor
when Ducati launched its Scrambler sub-
brand back in 2014, it was conveniently
overlooked that it was actually Triumph
that invented the street-legal scrambler
category back in 1949 with the TR5 Trophy,
so named after the three Speed
Twin-based bikes that the
British company built for
the 1948 ISDT in Italy,
winning three gold
medals and the
Manufacturers
Team trophy in
that gruelling
event.
The street-
legal spinoffs that
followed pow-
ered Triumph’s
expansion in
the U.S., where
dual-purpose street
scramblers became a
big deal in the ’60s, with
Triumph twins the class king-
pins that dominated desert racing
and enduro events for the next two decades.
Ducati only joined in with the 250 Scrambler
single in 1962, a smaller-capacity ripoff of the
concept conceived by its American importer
Berliner. And BMW never produced a model
with off-road capability until the 1980 launch
of the R80G/S.
MAY 2019 MOTORCYCLE MOJO 19