What killed the British bike industry? They committed industrial suicide. They didn't invest enough time nor the $ to offer contemporary competitive bikes across the range of customers, at attractive price points. The Japanese were using state of the art machine tools and production methods, building quality-in, instead of having multiple 'inspectors' at various points to cull bad builds at whatever part of the manufacturing process issues were discovered.
After WW II, Japan's industrial might which allowed them to fight, was ruined. For years, they struggled to be able to rebuild their infrastructure just to keep people fed and housed. Honda started out supplying parts for the domestic market for cars and trucks, and then decided to build inexpensive mopeds and then motorcycles.
Anyone who's familiar with TQM (Total Quality Management) will know the creator, W. Edwards Deming. He tried to establish his methods of production here in the USA, but there was little support offered by industrial operations. However, Japan Inc. offered him a place to use his ideas, and along with buying the best tool-making equipment they could, and lots of it, they were able to establish manufacturing capacity where quality was
built-in and not checked, after-the-fact in the fashion of USA manufacturing at the time. Every worker becomes a 'quality inspector,' and any operator can shut-down the production line if the output for which he/she is responsible would be turning-out defective parts or assemblies. By stopping the manufacture of flawed units, a whole layer of manufacturing defects inspectors can be eliminated. The space for warehousing the defective parts, assemblies, and completed units, awaiting efforts to correct their problems, eats-up space, time, and profit.
Six-Sigma is another zero-defects goal program which arose from Deming's ideas, and was developed by a Motorola engineer. It uses the
DMAIC approach to problem solving:
define, measure, analyze, improve, and control. The term
Lean Six-Sigma is probably best-aligned with Deming's pioneering work. It emphasizes quality:
defect prevention rather than
defect detection.
The Japanese term,
Kaizen is essentially a one-word definition of what TQM brought to Japan: build quality in, rather than look for defects after the fact. Sadly, the British motorcycle industry imploded on its own, not because of manufacturing successes by global competitors. The British motorcycle industry employees were suspected of sabotaging their own product, because of the merger of NVT (Norton-Villiers-Triumph), and the closing of BSA, who, one hundred years ago this year, was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. How the mighty have-fallen.
It wasn't for lack of trying that the British motorcycle industry tried to keep things going. The American arms of the British manufacturers attempted to read the market, to push for new product, and even to assemble complete motorcycles as ideas of, "what the USA market wants, now." Look-up the Craig Vetter Triumph Hurricane, a 'bitsa-bike' if ever there was one.
Triumph TRX 75 Harricane (motorcyclespecs.co.za) Yes, a mis-spelling/typo, a
covfefe of-sorts.
Lots of vintage British bikes here:
This has some good info on the mood at Triumph in the early 1970's:
1973 Triumph Hurricane X75 - Motorcycle Classics | Exciting and evocative articles and photographs of the most brilliant, unusual and popular motorcycles ever made!
Made and sold by Triumph, after being designed and built as a prototype by Craig Vetter, who presciently foretold two huge markets in the USA: choppers/cruisers, and the touring motorcycles, with large fairings, and dedicated hard luggage, and yes, even the sportbike phenomenon (see Vetter's
Mystery Ship Mystery Ship: The famous Vetter fairing | Bike EXIF) which had a 'halo-effect' across the manufacturers' more-common, more-inexpensive, less-performance products. Not everyone could afford a SOHC 750/4 Honda, in either the classic K model, or the F-model supersport, but hundreds of thousands could scrape together enough to buy a CB/CL/SL 350. Before those, it was the Honda CB/CL air-cooled parallel twins in 250cc (CB/CL 72) and 305cc (CB/CL 77) displacements, capable of running-through one after another tanks of gasoline at 8,000 rpm, with minimal maintenance. These came to market beginning in 1962, and quickly earned a reputation as 'giant-killers,' capable of pestering the half-liter and larger British bikes of the day, giving them fits. Notice has-been served, up your game or lose market-share. They did-not, and they did, respectively.
The Triumph Hurricane was made using a BSA Rocket III engine, but it was developed as a prototype by the American Triumph distributor, who hired Craig Vetter to build it and then was shipped to the U.K.: "
this is what we need!" It was a huge departure from any-other manufacturer's offerings of the time, and it looked more-like a custom show-bike than a production piece. However, it foretold the coming explosion into cruisers which has dominated the industry for decades. Vetter's fairings and luggage created the touring bike industry, and soon Honda was offering its own wide, tall fairings and hard luggage. Other Japanese manufacturers followed suit. While the British were struggling to make three-cylinders bikes, and then collapsing almost-entirely, with very-limited production of stop-gap models ("Jubilee Edition" Triumphs and Weslake cylinder heads models) Japan Inc. was offering water-cooled four cylinder bikes and air-cooled four cylinder performance models. Then, "I'll see your four cylinders, and raise you two, now
six-cylinder models!"
The response from NVT was underwhelming, that is to-say, unable to come to-market with a competitive product. Oh, there were attempts, the Triumph Quadrant, a four-cylinder effort died-aborning;
The Triumph Quadrant - Motorcycle Classics | Exciting and evocative articles and photographs of the most brilliant, unusual and popular motorcycles ever made! an after-hours attempt by the engineering staff to build a Japanese-beater, it had to be hidden from the board of directors, because they were loath to spend the development $$.
Then there was the 350cc parallel-twin Triumph/BSA model to pit-against the Honda CB/CL350, the Triumph Bandit/BSA Fury. After an abbreviated release, it was withdrawn from the market, but not-before it was advertised, and put into the hands of magazine road-testers. Again, too-little, too-late.
George Pooley is a constructor/machinist who, like others (Millyard, Georgeades), has put a second cylinder head onto a common crankcase and one-off crankshaft, in this case he did it to a Triumph triple. Call it a proof of concept, though it was done long-after the collapse of Meriden Triumph.
A Wonderful Crazy Genius Crammed A Ferrari V8 Into A Custom Motorcycle - MX-5 Miata Forum
As a former Triumph owner, I enjoyed the product, but the Japanese were better manufacturers of what the market bought: oil leak-free, reliable bikes needing minimal maintenance (no splitting the cases to clean-out the crankshaft oil passage before 10K miles) at good price points, lots of dealers, and a hierarchy of larger, faster, more-exciting bikes, all-under one manufacturer.
"You meet the nicest people on a Honda," but the manufacturers of Japan Inc. aren't the assassins of the British motorcycle industry, the British lack of timely, effective, efficient, economic responsiveness is what nearly ended it. Thank-god for John Bloor.
Note unusual approaches: the mechanical front disc brake,
not-hydraulic! And the exposed front fork springs, they remind me of the MN-based Excelsior-Henderson models with similar styling, if-not engineering for the front suspension. The gas tank has lines like the 'coffin-tank' CZ motocross bikes. The headlight nacelle reminds me of many 1950's/'60's era Ducatis, and those 'cocktail-shaker' exhausts are very-stylish! This is a very-early prototype of the Bandit/Fury, and major changes occurred due to discovery of substantial changes needed to fix deficiencies. Note the cylinder cooling fins' configuration and the design of the cyl head differences.
Got my bikes mixed up. Of course you're right. The K5 sports a mechanical rear drum (as photographed above).
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