I'm sure this would be ditto for the British motorcycle industry as well.
Who needs those darn electric starters.
The reborn Triumph is from what I've read building a pretty nice bike these
days. Nice to know at least something is still rolling of the assembly line
with the Triumph name on it.
Mark Ascherl
1981 TR8 DHC FI
Raleigh, NC
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Schwartz" <bschwart@pacbell.net>
To: <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Cc: <spitfires@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2000 5:34 PM
Subject: Old British thinking (formerly TR7 bashing :-})
>
> As Jonmac pointed out in a previous post of the prevalent attitude of the
> time, I can say that it wasn't just limited to Triumph, or British cars
> for that matter - In the early 70's I worked in a bicycle shop that my
> father owned and not only did the attitude carry over to the British
bikes,
> but the French and Italian and in general, European philosophy was the
> same. The bikes of the era came with a fixed close ratio set of gear
> ratios, hard leather seats and iffy brakes, pretty much standard fare at
> the time. As for those new fangled Japanese bikes, well what did they
> know. After all, how long had they been making bikes anyway. . . You want
> lower ratio gear sets, fine buy one ' them foreign things, you want a
> softer seat, fine buy on of them Japanese bikes, you want better brakes,
> fine. . .well you get the picture, people did just that. The Japanese
were
> more than willing to change for the market that was buying their product
> and the Europeans weren't. By the time I stopped working there, the
> European bikes which had changed little over the years were almost
> non-existent while those rising sun makes had proliferated and were about
> the only thing selling. Guess it really does pay to listen to what your
> customers want cause if you don't there is usually someone else who will .
> . .
>
> Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
>
> 72 PI, V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
> 70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
> 70 Spitfire (long term project)
>
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