OLD SALT. Bonham’s Classic ’51 Triumph Thunderbird Bonneville Racer
What were you doing with your life when you were 13? California's Bobby Sirkegian was racing Triumphs at Bonneville.
When is a Triumph Bonneville not actually a Bonneville? When it’s a Thunderbird T6 that raced and wowed the Bonneville salt flats in the sport’s golden era, that’s when. A full 6 years before the model name was dreamt up, a 13-year-old Californian named Bobby Sirkegian, under the watchful eye of Rollie ‘No Pants’ Free, took this particularly sweet-looking 649cc bad boy all the way to 122mph. True story. In fact, the bike still has the brass SCTA timing tag attached. It may not be a Bonneville, but it sure as hell owns the name.
After more than a decade of battle-imposed austerity, Triumph followed up their uber popular Speed Twin 500 of the pre-war days by leading the field once again with a new 650cc parallel twin model. Announced in September 1949, the 650 T6 Thunderbird was Triumph’s guns-a-blazing response to the demands for more power from both American and British racers. As Bonhams (who is soon auctioning the bike) notes, “A spectacular launch stunt saw three Thunderbirds lap the banked Montlhéry circuit in France at over 90mph for 500 miles, after which they each achieved a flying lap of 100mph-plus and were ridden back to the Meriden factory, a quite outstanding achievement”.
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