Although I still have reservations about selling my 2018 Triumph Street Twin, I’m doing it because the 2024 model’s green.

My 2018 Triumph Street Twin’s been practically flawless for five years here in Pattaya. And with its high torque 900 c.c. engine it’s a lot more bike than I need. As I’ve mentioned here, my 155 c.c. Yamaha Nmax is the perfect bike for this city and its environs, so why should I sell my 2018 Triumph Street Twin? The decisive reason is the new 2024 Triumph Speed Twin’s being offered in a green color that’s reminiscent of classic British racing green.

So what does the color green have to do with my selling my 2018 Triumph Street Twin?

A lot more than anyone reading this can begin to imagine. It all goes back to 1963 during the Indianapolis 500. And even before that in 1956 when my Dad bought a new 1956 Buick Roadmaster before selling his nearly identical 1955 Buick Roadmaster.

In 1956 I was 9 years old. So I remember Dad trying to get his new 1956 Buick Roadmaster up to 120 miles an hour. But I don’t recall his pulling the same stunt with his 1955 Roadmaster. The 1955 Buick had disappointed him because it wasn’t as fast as a Chrysler New Yorker he had own earlier.

But I don’t remember his Chrysler New Yorker at all. So I can’t say for sure what year he bought it. But Dad kept telling me that it topped out at 120 miles per hour.

It’s likely it produced either 180 horsepower or 195 and possibly even 235 horsepower had he bought the 1954 New Yorker delux.

Even if he had bought the 1954 Chrysler New Yorker delux that produced 235 horsepower, his new 1956 Buick Roadmaster had 255 horsepower–20 more than his New Yorker. While his 1955 Buick Roadmaster developed 235 horsepower which was the same his Chrysler New Yorker had.

So what does my Dad’s fixation on the top speed of so many of his cards have to do with my wanting to buy the 2024 Triumph Speed twin in any color so long as it is in green? And selling my 2018 Triumph Street twin?

Just like my dad I’ve always been performance orientated whether I’m evaluating a car or a motorcycle’s performance.

And bottom line, the 2020 to 2023 Triumph Street Twins significantly outperform the 2016 to 2019 Triumph Street Twins. The 2015 Triumph Street Twin had a 5555 engine that produced 66 horsepower, but in 2016 Triumph reduced the horsepower of the Street Twin to only 54 horsepower.

But in 2016 Cycle World gave a rave review to the 2016 new 900 c.c. Street Twin calling it the best standard motorcycle of the year.

Even though the 2016 Triumph Street Twin had ten fewer horsepower that the 2015 model, Cycle World contended that it was a much faster bike real world driving conditions due to the huge torque advantage it had than the earlier model.

But in 2020 Triumph tweaked the Street Twins engine and found 10 more horsepower that can be used at higher rpms.

I talked to the manager of my Triumph dealership about trading my 2018 Street Twin for the new higher horsepower model. But he scoffed at the idea, and told me, “we live in Pattaya. Your bike goes more than fast enough here. Why on earth do you want to go even faster?”

I was also watching videos from Tec that claim my 2018 Triumph Street Twin can easily reclaim 10 horsepower with the simple replacement of its cam with an improved cam sold by Tec. But when I bought an aftermarker center stand from Tech that proved to be very poorly engineered I scuttled any further thought about purchasing their cam.

Nevertheless, there’s not a single doubt in my mind that the engine of my 2018 Triumph Street twin is seriously de tuned.

My 1970’s vintage Honda 450 had 45 horsepower, and 450 cc’s is just half the engine displacement of my 900 Triumph Street Twin. So when we compare apples to apples my 900 c.c. engine should be producing at least 80 horsepower, and certainly not the only 54 ponies Triumph gave it.

So yeah, getting ten more horsepower from my 2018 Triumph Street Twin seemed like not asking too much.

On the other hand, I rarely take my Triumph over 4000 rpms and that’s where the extra power comes from. In the real world my Triumph is very fast. I just need to be constantly shifting to be getting maximum acceleration out of it. Which is very easy to do because the shifting, and clutching of my Triumph is butterfly smooth.

So why on earth should I be even thinking about getting more power from my 2018 Triumph Street Twin or replacing it for a newer model?

Because the new 2024 Triumph Speed Twin’s green. That’s why. And this color of green is very close to classic British racing green, only it’s even more beautiful.

The car I learned to drive on was a 1958 English MGA. The only problem with it was it had been repainted silver instead of the classic English racing green. Then my mother traded it for an MGB which suffered from the same problem. It wasn’t British racing green.

I finally bought a 1993 Mazda Miata sports car when I was in my forties whole I was divorcing my wife. While between 1993 and 1995 I was writing my first novel, Death on the Wild Side.

In Death on the Wild Side, I have the book’s protagonist having a one of a kind sports car being built for him.

My protagonist or book’s main character buys a used MGB and has his mechanic drop a V-8 engine into it. Then the mechanic supercharges the little car’s engine. But by this time I’m living life in the fast lane on a nearly parallel course with my book’s main character. My 1993 Mazda Miata sport’s car’s engine develops only 116 horsepower out of its 1600 engine.

So like my protagonist of Death on the Wild Side, I try my dead level best to extract the maximum performance I can get out of my little sports car. It as a no brain er changing the exhaust to get an increase of 5 horsepower. Then I tried a special intake that rammed cold air into the engine whose manufacturer claimed would get another 15 horsepower out of the engine. Perhaps it did. But I wanted to get a lot more power from the little four cylinder engine. A Sebring supercharger that should deliver a 40 percent increase in power was my answer.

To give my supercharged Miata’s chassis and wheels to handle all that extra horsepower I had my car lowered to accommodate significantly larger wheels and tires. My crowning touches were a new cold air intake close to one of the car’s headlights, a header and a roll bar.

My supercharged Mazda Miata’s top speed increased from 118 mph to 140.

The engine now felt like a V-8. But I eventually blew three engines trying to get the Miata to top out at more than 140 miles an hour. The car had the horsepower to do it. The car was still accelerating at 139 miles an hour. I’d say it had the power to weight ration to top 150 miles per hour. But the car had a rev limiter at would shut the power off at the Miata’s red line of 7300 rpm. The effect was immediate. I’d be getting the sports car up to 140 miles per hour at 7300 rpm and suddenly the engine would stop pumping fuel to the car’s 4 cylinders.

Meanwhile my father had bought a new Toyota Lexus that had a 250 horsepower V-8 stuck under its hood. Dad was trying to do the same thing I was doing. Each time he tried to max out the car’s top speed all he could get out of it was 150 miles an hour. He finally managed to get 151 miles an hour out of it. He was 80 years old then.

By the time I was 16 Dad had shared his keen interest in the Indy 500 with me.

In 1963 I started to get very excited about Ford Motor company’s teaming up with Lotus, which was then producing the fastest car in Formula One Grand Prix. In the early 1960’s Lotus had the best technology of it’s day. With its formula one racing cars using a lightweight monocoque construction with its engine in the rear. While its competitors were still putting their engines in the front of their race cars.

At the same time Lotus was creating the fastest formula one cars, Ford Motor Company started getting into racing in a very big way. And Ford had the Indy 500 on its targeted list that it sought to dominate. I still remember reading about how Ford had developed a 375 horsepower engine that it installed into a pair of Colin Chapman’s Grand Prix Lotuses that Lotus and Ford would pit against the Offenhauser powered Indy cars that had dominated Indy 500 racing with their engines in front of the driver.

Ford and Lotus then got Dan Gurney to agree to drive one of the cars, and Jim Clark from Scotland, perhaps the greatest grand Prix driver of his era to drive the other. In 1963 the Offenhauser engines produced a lot more than the 375 horsepower Ford engines. But the Lotus grand prix bodies were much lighter. And better handling.

Gurney and Clark’s Lotus’s with their Ford engines did not win in 1963.

But in 1964 Dad and I drove to the Indy 500 together to watch Jimmy Clark and Dan Gurney dominate the field.

Dad and I watched Eddie Sachs and Dave McDonald get killed on lap number three. We were so close to the flames that we could actually smell human flesh burning. The officials stopped the race, then restarted it once the flames had cleared. From then on Jimmy Clark simply blew everyone away until mechanical problems took him out of the race.

But I will never forget that beautiful car of his, that light weight very agile Lotus painted British racing green.

Jimmy Clark would go on to win the 1965 Indy 500 while becoming the dominant driver in Formula one competition in his green Lotus. In 1968 he was killed in a totally inconsequential formula 2 race. But by then British racing green was the color for me when it came to sports cars. And now that I’ve been driving my Triumph motorcycle for the past five years, an a total fan of Triumphs, I just have to have my next Triumph in green to help remind me of my father’s and my forever infatuation for fast high performance cars.

Click here if you are interested in watching my thirty minute test drive of my 2018 Triumph Street Twin.

If you want to find out more about the 2018 Triumph Street Twin’s phenomenal fuel economy, click here.

Click here if you want to watch “Jim Clark, the quiet Champion.

Click here if you want to watch the Legend of Jim Clark.