This is a blog I did for CSC a year or so ago, and it’s one I thought I would run again here. We haven’t done a Dream Bikes blog in a while, and it’s time.
It’s raining, it’s cold here in southern California, and those two conditions are enough to keep me indoors today. I’ve been straightening things up here in the home office, and I came across a Triumph brochure from 1978. I bought a new Bonneville that year and as I type this, I realize that was a cool 40 years ago. Wowee. Surprisingly, the brochure scanned well, so much so that even the fine print is still readable…
Triumph had two 750 twins back then. One was the twin-carb Bonneville, and the other was the single-carb model (I think they called it the Tiger). The Bonneville came in brown or black and the Tiger came in blue or red (you can see the color palette in the third photo above). I liked the red and my dealer (in Fort Worth) swapped the tank from a Tiger onto my Bonneville. I loved that bike, and I covered a lot of miles in Texas on it. I used to ride with a friend and fellow engineer at General Dynamics named Sam back in the F-16 days (he had a Yamaha 500cc TT model, which was another outstanding bike back in the day). I wish I still had that Bonneville.
After I sold the Bonneville, I turned right around and bought a ’79 Electra-Glide Classic. There’s a brochure buried around here somewhere on that one, and if I come across it I’ll see how it scans. The Harley had a lot of issues, but it’s another one I enjoyed owning and riding, and it’s another I wish I still owned.
So there you have it. That ’78 Bonneville is a bike I still have dreams about, and they were made all the more poignant by the Royal Enfield Interceptor I rode in Baja last month. You can read about the Enfield Interceptor and our Baja adventures here.
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Joe, this is uncanny, I had a 1978 Bonneville with the Black Tank and Red trim just like in the first picture.
It does seems our tastes in motorcycles run in the same vein…Yellow Triumph 1200 4 for another.
I did have Tiger but a Green Three cylinder model in the John Bloor ear. I will have to continue reading your blogs to uncover what other bikes we both have owned over the course of our lives.