The story begins in England, just before WW I.

As the world lurched towards war, motorcycling was in its most exciting, adventurous period. New designs, styles and transmissions were being invented, companies sprang up in the boom, assembling bikes from the frames and engines of other manufacturers. Nowhere was motorcycling expanding more than in Great Britain. In 1909, a small British company called Triumph experimented with a new French engine, a 616cc, side-valve, vertical, parallel twin from Bercley. This new design had a 360-degree crankshaft. In 1913, Triumph announced its own vertical twin, based on the Bercley design, but using a 180-degree crankshaft. But production was halted when war broke out and Triumph turned its attention to making motorcycles for the Allied troops. The design would not be revived for another 20 years.

In 1933, Triumph's chief designer was Val Page. Page's 'flagship' model - and his last great effort for Triumph - was the 6/1- 25bhp, four-speed, four-stroke 650 vertical twin, designed primarily for the sidecar market. It had a 360-degree crankshaft. The 6/1 soon won speed awards, lapping in tests at Brooklands at 100 mph. However exciting the concept, it proved a commercial failure in a conservative market. Other companies' twins at this time were all V-twins, so the vertical/parallel twin was an oddity. Triumph struggled along for a few more years, concentrating mostly on the booming car industry, but in 1936 it split the car division into a separate company. Ariel founder Jack Sangster bought the motorcycle division and appointed a new designer, the young Edward Turner, who had developed the Ariel Square Four. Val Page left Triumph to work for BSA.

In July 1937, Turner introduced the 500cc Speed Twin, selling at 75 pounds. It took the motorcycle world by storm. This 27bhp vertical/parallel-twin, overhead-valve model set the trend for motorcycles and its form continued well into the 1980s. It was capable of travelling 90 mph (145kph) and weighed 361 lb. (166kg). Some writers say the design was based on the engine design of the Riley 9 car, which Turner owned at the time. Soon after the Speed Twin was introduced, other motorcycle companies were making similar models - Ariel, BSA, Matchless, Norton, AJS and Royal Enfield among them. Triumph itself would produce dozens of vertical twin models for the next four decades, including the T100, T110 and Daytona.

The British motorcycle industry was devastated by the advent of the Second World War, and never fully recovered, as it had after WW I. Of 300-700 marques that existed between the wars, fewer than 100 emerged in 1946. Most of them struggled for survival, trying to retain a small foothold in a market that had changed its allegiance to cars. Most of these companies would fail within another decade. 

Among the survivors were the three giants: Triumph, BSA and Norton - destined to become one company in another 20-odd years, joined by a dozen other struggling manufacturers who gave up production in that period - James, Francis-Barnett, Arial, Panther, and others. But no one suspected the impending collapse of the British motorcycle industry at that time. Britain shook off its miserly wartime rationing, and companies scrambled to re-establish their lines as civilian vehicles in those boom-time, post-war years. The next two decades would become the halcyon days of British motorcycling, even as the market dwindled and competition from overseas marques eroded the British mastery of the field.

Lurking in the background, also digging out from under the aftermath of the war and the devastation of continued bombing, were the Japanese. Initially, their motorcycle industry was concerned with creating inexpensive transportation for the domestic market. It turned its eyes to the undisputed master of motorcycles for inspiration: Great Britain. Japanese manufacturers got a jumpstart in their market by copying and improving British designs. Slavish replicas of British models were among the early motorcycles offered for local consumption. But the Japanese weren't content to simply copy: they tinkered. They improved. They advanced. By 1959, Honda was entering the TT races - which it would dominate in the early 1970s. But until the mid 1960s, they didn't make any significant inroads into the export market. No one could yet imagine their presence as a powerful player.

Turner would continue to hone and develop his vertical/parallel twin through the next three decades. In 1950, he increased the size to 650cc when he introduced the Thunderbird model, popular among American riders. Turner declared that this was the optimum size for a vertical twin, with the engine running a top 6,500 rpm. He was worried vibration would tear the engine apart if it was pushed any higher. But Norton and Royal Enfield pushed beyond this limit in the 1960s, making 750cc parallel twins. However, Norton leaned its engine 20 degrees. Another, less successful, entry into the parallel twin market was the Indian Scout, introduced in 1949 as a 440cc engine, later upgraded to the 500cc Warrior.

Turner continued his vertical twin through to the Bonneville, in 1959. This was easily the icon of British motorcycling engineering for the next decade, stunning in its looks and performance. Turner himself experimented with an angled engine - the 350cc bandit, which never went beyond prototype stage. The Bonneville would be increased to 750cc after Turner died, but by that time, it was outclassed by the many Japanese motorcycles on the market and the development of the V-four engine.

One of the early Japanese manufacturers, Meguro (1937-1964), chose the four-stroke, BSA A7 and A10 vertical twins as its models of choice to clone in its own K1, a classically-styled air-cooled, vertical twin that would easily fool most casual watchers. Meguro produced the bikes under licence from BSA until it was taken over in 1964 by industrial giant Kawasaki, known then for its aircraft engines. Although BSA dropped their twins around this time, and would soon close its doors forever, Kawasaki continued to develop the bike under the name K2. Attempts to market this bike in the USA were unsuccessful: the K2 was too weak and underpowered for the North Americans. Kawasaki took this as a lesson.

In 1965, the K2 was revamped and upgraded and brought out as the W1, a 624cc twin that was more readily accepted in the USA when it was launched there in 1966. Several later variations such as the W1S, W2SS,W1SA, WT1 Commander, W2, W2TT and W3 kept the line going successfully until 1973-74, when the last of the breed, the W3-2, was dropped as outdated. Numerous vertical twins, including the long-lived Yamaha XS650, made from 1969 until 1983, were also dropped for newer designs. By then, new and more powerful Japanese bikes were storming the market. Japanese bikes were the rage in North American and Europe, winning races worldwide, and conquering the streets. Kawasaki's W series stayed doggedly old-fashioned and traditional, never even evolving to unit construction although its British cousins adopted the production methods years earlier.

The outdated British styling and engine design had been left behind by more modern machines. The Brits would struggle on for another decade, never able to find a design that recaptured their prominence like the Speed Twin had done. The many companies that emerged from WWII eroded into one last, trouble-ridden company that imploded on itself and collapsed in 1983. The British motorcycle industry would not recover until industrialist John Bloor put his private money into reviving the Triumph name in the early 1990s. Bloor's Triumphs would be modern and stylish, but bore no resemblance to the vertical twins of Edward Turner's day. However, from the beginning, rumours maintained the new Triumph would one day launch its own, air-cooled vertical twin named the Bonneville. In late 2000, the machine was unveiled to the press and models appeared on shop floors in early 2001. Beside it in many shops was another Bonneville replica, the W650, from Kawasaki, launched a few years earlier. Retro had returned.

Note for 2003: The W is still in production, but seems to have been dropped from the models being imported into Canada and the USA by Kawasaki.

See my history of Triumph Motorcycles and database of British Motorcycle manufacturers for more.

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