California Cool British Style

That's quite enough modern stuff. Time to have a look at the classic original street scrambler — Triumph's TR6C Trophy Special.

- Alan Cathcart

With the debut of the latest version of its twin-cylinder Street Scrambler (see page 32), Triumph has taken another long look in its corporate rearview mirror. The result is a revamped modern tribute to one of the most successful models in its 1960s classic-era lineup – the go-anywhere Trophy street enduro.

For all the furore when Ducati did the same thing with its Scrambler back in 2014, many people overlooked that it was actually Triumph which invented the street scrambler category back in 1949 with the TR5 Trophy. The bike was so named after the three Speed Twin-based bikes that the British company built for the 1948 ISDT in Italy, winning three gold medals and the Manufacturers team trophy in that gruelling event.

That street-legal replica powered Triumph’s expansion in the USA, where street scramblers became a big deal in the ’60s. The British company was the class kingpin, dominating desert racing and enduro events for the next two decades. Ducati only joined in with the 250 Scrambler in 1962 – a smaller-capacity rip-off of the concept, conceived by its US importer Berliner.

Yet even if it was unaccountably never sold anywhere else except the United States, for many of today’s fans of all Triumph’s yesterdays the 650cc Bonneville-based TR6C Trophy Special is the most alluring of the many different models in the British brand’s twin-cylinder back catalogue.