Triumphrat

tccox · 01-03-2008, 10:10 AM

to have Indian Owners ????? Today at CNN

"DETROIT (AP) -- Ford Motor Co. picked India's Tata Motors Ltd. as the top bidder for its Jaguar and Land Rover units, the Detroit automaker said Thursday."

modre · 01-03-2008, 10:15 AM

The Sky Is Falling!!!

Run!!!

Pauljo · 01-03-2008, 11:27 AM

No worries! No self respecting biker would ride a "Tata".

ohiorider · 01-03-2008, 11:30 AM

Poor old Land Rover has been passed around a bunch. BMW owned it for several years, sold off most or all their Rover Motors (I think it was Rover) products, but kept the one they'd developed from scratch .... the new Mini.

From BMW to Ford to India. Maybe that's not a bad place for LR to land. Maybe it'll end up as the Royal Enfield of off-road vehicles.

Bob

dazco · 01-03-2008, 11:31 AM

If that happened i would bet a wad of money there is no way they'd go on as they are now. To build bikes equivalent to what triumph makes now would put them out of business because no real triumph fan would buy a triumph labeled bike fully made and even designed in India. They WILL buy a thai assembled bike right now because it's still fully designed and spec'd by triumph and will be 100% exactly like what has come from Hinkley so far. But this indian thing would be a completely different story, and the majority of triumph owners will lose all interest in the brand. And i'm sure things will change even if they use the same designs triumph uses now. They would be forced to cheapen the product considerably or sales would suffer and they'd go down the tubes w/o a doubt. Few will buy them once the english company is gone and all decisions are made by this new indian company.The only way they could pull it off is to do what they did with royal enfield and build extremely cheap junk bikes that look similar but are garbage and sell them for next to nothing. In other words, either way the brand will be doomed.

In short, Triumph depends on 2 things to be successful....quality/design, and brand loyalty/history. If india bought the company both will have to go.

Thruxtonian · 01-03-2008, 11:53 AM

This has happened many times before, and as an example of how it COULD go, just look at Vespa. They sold licensing to an indian company, I think it was called Bajal, to use the tooling to produce the p150 and p200 in india. What you ended up with is a bike that "looked" just like an authentic Italian Vespa, but wasn't.
A friend of mine recently purchased a scooter titled as a '68, but which is actually a vietnamese import once again made under license. He saved about $1000 over buying an Italian Vespa which had been restored in the states. About a month later, the motor started giving him trouble. To date, I believe he's put about $1200 in to keeping it running, not to mention countless trips to the shop and now the lack of trust he has in the machine. He admits he would have been better off to buy the "real thing" and spend more up front. Turns out when the mechanic got into his, he said it was made up of parts from various years of production, some of which were not interchangable, which is what had caused his problems.

On an unrelated note, how much for the tata's. It's not true that no one here would buy one. In fact, if they are half price, I could buy two. I'd love to have a beautiful pair of Tatas.

tbsrider2000 · 01-03-2008, 12:09 PM

I doubt Triumph is next. Ford is having to unload Jaguar/Rover to stay afloat and keep the share holders happy, part of being a publicly held company.

Triumph Motorcycles is a privately owned company. Mr. Bloor is a business man more than a motorcycle enthusiast. As long at Triumph is making a profit, I doubt it will be for sale.

JEnfield · 01-03-2008, 12:28 PM

The US market has slowed and they are all seeing the pinch remember a couple of weeks back when HD took a week layoff.

e404pnf · 01-03-2008, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbsrider2000

I doubt Triumph is next. Ford is having to unload Jaguar/Rover to stay afloat and keep the share holders happy, part of being a publicly held company.

Triumph Motorcycles is a privately owned company. Mr. Bloor is a business man more than a motorcycle enthusiast. As long at Triumph is making a profit, I doubt it will be for sale.

: my thoughts exactly.

dazco · 01-03-2008, 01:27 PM

Ummm.......i can't see the Vespa/Triumph comparison. People who buy Triumphs generally won't if they are much cheaper both in price and quality, while Vespa owners don't have the same pride in and brand loyalty. Building a cheap Triumph both price and quality wise will lose 95% of current Triumph customers w/o a doubt. I suppose they may survive on a whole new customer base like the cheesy enfields. In other words, the name which at this point is a huge part of the selling point will mean nothing to anyone that cared before. Vespa is in large part a transportation vehicle. Yeah, it has a name due to the many years they have been around. But many if not most will still buy them as long as they get the same great gas mileage and don't break down all the time. They could care less about the history of the brand like a triumph person does or how awesome the chrome is. Triumph and Vespa owners have a totally different reason for buying what they do. A Ferarri person wouldn't likely buy a Ferarri if they were sold to an Indian company, but they will buy a clock for thier kitchen made in china w/o even looking at where it's made. The Vespa is a clock to most people.