While the sun has set on much of the British Empire, it seems virtually certain that the Triumph motorcycle will always endure. This two-wheel icon from the glory days of British bikes has witnessed wars, economic downturns, and other upheavals that forever changed the United Kingdom’s motor vehicle industry, and has emerged from them more desirable than ever, with its heritage intact. From a distinguished roster of great British motorcycle brands that included BSA, Norton, Ariel, and Vincent, only Triumph has survived.

Triumph’s most recent rebirth neither left it a producer of tepid retro-bikes assembled from outsourced components nor delivered it into foreign hands, as was the fate of Jaguar, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley. Today’s Triumphs, emerging from a modern factory in Hinckley, Leicestershire, at a rate of some 150 each day, are well-engineered, high-performance machines built by Britons working for a British company. As such, they can rightly be considered a continuation of tradition, even though production has been halted more than once by outside forces.

Some of the model names in the current Triumph catalog will be familiar to riders with a sense of history: Bonneville, Thruxton, Tiger, and Thunderbird are all evocative of bygone days, yet each of these bikes seems poised to write some fresh history of its own. Others, such as the America, Daytona, and Rocket III, may not stir such strong memories, but they have plenty of appeal for today’s riders, offering competitive alternatives to superbikes from Japan and Italy and large cruisers built in the United States.

However, for at least as long as there are older riders with strong feelings for the name, Triumph’s fame will rest with its 2-cylinder bikes, and the most renowned of these is the eternal Bonneville. The 2004 model is a visual tribute to the original Bonnie of 1959, especially when configured in its T100 trim.

The first Bonneville was not Triumph’s first twin—that honor goes to Val Page’s 1933 model 6/1—but it traces its roots to the company’s 1937 Speed Twin. Designed by engineer Edward Turner, who much later created a compact, powerful V-8 engine used in some Daimler automobiles, the Speed Twin established a basis from which all Triumph twins were derived through 1983.