For nigh on the first half of the Twentieth Century the Triumph company was based in Coventry. Housed in a large factory where both motorcycles and cars were built in large numbers. The clunking of machinery, grinding of lathes, and rumbling of engines must have been a heady experience. Horn blows and the shift starts.

Here’s a great image of a squad of weathertight adorned test riders ready to hit the Midlands lanes to check the bike for owner worthiness.

The factory turned to war efforts in the late thirties which put it square in the sights of the German Wehrmacht; and lo, during the Coventry Blitz between September 1940 and May 1941 the works, along with other manufacturing, were flattened by Heinkel and Dornier bombers. (A side note: Coventry is twinned with Volgagrad and Dresden, both noted sites of major WWII history)

Triumph Motorcycles were rapidly rebuilt in ’42, this time over in Solihull at the Meriden factory.