Triumph

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Standard-Triumph International was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is now owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann (1863–1951) of Nuremberg formed S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them under his own trade name in London. The trade name became "Triumph" the following year.

The company was renamed the Triumph Cycle Company in 1897. In 1902, they began producing Triumph Motorcycles.

Subject ID: 2003

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Standard-Triumph International was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is now owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann (1863–1951) of Nuremberg formed S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them under his own trade name in London. The trade name became "Triumph" the following year.

The company was renamed the Triumph Cycle Company in 1897. In 1902, they began producing Triumph Motorcycles.

Dawson Car Company was launched in 1919 and manufactured about 65 cars before going out of business two years later.

The assets were purchased by Triumph Cycle Company and they began producing automobiles in addition to motorcycles.

In 1930 the company's name was changed to Triumph Motor Co.  They could not compete at the low end of the market so they began churning out expensive cars like the Gloria and Southern Cross.

They still found themselves uncompetitive and ran into financial difficulty so they sold the bicycle/motorcycle business.

Triumph bikes went on to become legendary in the hands of people like Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen and Bob Dylan.

Standard Motor Company was an automobile company, founded in 1903 by Reginald Maudslay in Coventry, England. It bought Triumph in 1945, changed its name to Standard-Triumph and put the Triumph nameplate on all of their cars.

Standard-Triumph had moderate success in the Fifties with the Renown and Mayflower family saloons, the TR series sports cars and the Herald.

In 1960 Standard Triumph was scooped up by Leyland Motors, but retained Standard-Triumph as the division and manuacturer name for their cars.

Leyland was a truck and bus manufacturer most famous for the London double-decker bus, the AEC Routemaster.

That company purchased Rover/Alvis in 1966.

Further mergers in 1968 brought British Motor Holdings into the fold and the company regrouped under the umbrella of British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC).

BMH brought the MG, Jaguar, Daimler, Austin and Morris marques.

BLMC was nationalized in 1975 as British Leyland.

For all practical purposes, MG and Triumph were dead at this point.

Truthfully, Triumph was dead by 1969 as MG was the more marketable name. 

Although the TR7 was introduced (and the TR8 in the US), any real engineering was limited and the company was bled dry.

The last Triumph built was a rebadged Honda Accord that was sold under the Triumph Acclaim nameplate in 1981.

From time to time, BMW has hinted at reviving the name but it has little resonance after all these years away.

Consider that the much better known MG marque continues on under Chinese ownership but has never made inroads in the US and makes no true sports cars for Europe.

Subject ID: 2003

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Subject ID: 2003