Technically, no. The "original Triumph motorcycle company" got folded into the BSA Group a long time ago; then into Norton Villiers Triumph; and then lived on as the Meriden Motorcycle Cooperative after the collapse of NVT, until 1983 when they just couldn't get enough capital to continue on. Everything that was left of Triumph at that point was bought by John Bloor, who rebuilt the whole company pretty much from scratch.
By the time he bought the physical assets, intellectual property, and so on, someone taking a very strict definition of the term could argue there already wasn't much "original" of Triumph left. However, it's entirely reasonable to look at 1983 as just another change of hands, with the new owner shutting down to reorganize and rebuild. (That's very different from Norton or Vincent, for example, where all assets were dispersed among different creditors. The only thing that remained of them is the name, which had to be acquired by the current builders from a holding company. There's much more continuity in the Triumph family tree.)
For a few years, Bonnevilles were made by a third party under license while Mr Bloor considered the fate of the company. From 1988-91 there were no new Triumphs at all, but R&D resumed in a new plant, with key people from Meriden getting the ball rolling. Finally, the first of the Triumphs out of Mr Bloor's new factory in Hinckley went on sale in 1991, and Triumph returned to the States in 1995.
There is an historical timeline with a few photos on the Triumph company site, and most folks also find Ian Chadwick's
Triumph history pages to be very entertaining and informative.
[ This message was edited by: Diego on 2006-03-04 18:06 ]
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