1965 Triumph Thunderbird

1965 TRIUMPH THUNDERBIRD AS A COMMUTER?
When the 6T Thunderbird launched in 1950, it was the first Triumph 650 (up from the 500cc 5T Speed Twin, and was the largest British-made parallel twin at the time. As such, it was a true hot rod in its day. However, the rest of the Brits quickly followed suit and just being a 650 was no longer enough. Triumph juiced it up with higher compression and hotter cams and created the T110 Tiger in 1953, dropped the new Delta head on in 1956, creating the hotter-still TR6, then stuck a second carb on in 1959 creating the legendary Bonneville. This effectively left the entire Thunderbird line on the back burner. What once was the fastest bike that Triumph built, now was their entry-level 650. It was now filling the role of basic commuter bike, leaving the hot rodding to the big boys It was still a fantastic bike, well-developed by this time, but nearing the end of its life. 1966 was the last year for the T-bird (until modern times), the market had simply moved on. Performance was now the mainstream, and bikes that weren’t fast didn’t get much attention.

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1965 Triumph Thunderbird SPECIFICATIONS