Building an Updated Triumph Hurricane

Mark McLean has a soft spot for the original Triumph Hurricane and he hoped the factory might come out with an updated version one day, but you can only wait so long before admitting the obvious, it ain’t happening. What to do? Well, you start looking for a proper donor bike and begin gathering pieces and build it yourself. The end result is something that should cause more than a few double takes as he motors by on bike night, first when bystanders see a Hurricane, then again when they realize something’s out of place. “Hey, weren’t those air cooled?”

Working with his friend Roger Banks (chief engineer and mechanic) they started with a 1997 Trident 750, after all, the original was a 750, might as well stay true to the inspiration. Mark, who is in the UK, found a nice one in Spain and that was the base for their project.

He had already found a tank and seat unit on eBay, manufactured in the 1970s, that had been passed from one guy to another for 40 years, every one of them with intentions of building a Hurricane, but until it ended up with Mark, it never happened.

They removed a large pile of Trident parts and pieces and began the work of frame modification, nothing structural, mostly getting rid of the unnecessary bits. They had to rearrange the electrics to keep them out of sight and then Roger made the new exhaust from a Daytona 3 into 1, cutting off the inlets and adding originals, then fabricating a 1 into 3 section which feeds the original Hurricane silencers.

The wheels come from a Tiger 885 because Mark wanted a 19 inch front for the tall Hurricane look and they built spoked wheels on alloy rims like the original, which required a fair bit of machining to make the brakes line up.

Gauges are from a Yamaha XJ, not original, but they looked right. The top yoke was fitted with an adapter for original Hurricane handlebars.

Lots of fitting, finishing and tuning and the result is a bike with modern reliability, original appearance and with the K&Ns and custom exhaust, it sounds even better.

We’ve seen modern interpretations of the Hurricane before, though I think this one is closer to the original. It’s pretty sweet. I like it.