Details of new 2016 Triumph Bonnevilles

Photos: Courtesy of Triumph, unless otherwise specified. Feature photo by Costa Mouzouris

You’ve seen the leaked images and witnessed some teaser shots in promotional videos. Well, it’s now official: Triumph has just released the new generation Bonneville. Canada Moto Guide was invited to London last week to get a glimpse of five new Bonnevilles, though an embargo prevented us from posting right away and even saying we were at a special Triumph event.

This is the first major upgrade to the modern Bonneville since it was reintroduced 15 years ago. According to Triumph, this is the biggest project the company has worked on in recent years, having started four years ago, and utilizing twice the development team of the previous model – an indicator as to how important the Bonneville range is to the company. They could also be Triumph’s answer to Ducati’s highly successful Scrambler range.

The new models include the Street Twin, the T120 and T120 Black, the Thruxton and the Thruxton R — and each family has its own engine and chassis setup. Returning with the air-cooled engine are the America, the Speedmaster, and the Scrambler.

As has been leaked numerous times, the new Bonnies are liquid cooled, but what you may not know is that they are entirely new motorcycles, with no interchangeable parts with the air-cooled models. The radiator is neatly located between the front downtubes, and because of more careful routing of hoses, it is actually less conspicuous than the oil cooler on the air-cooled bike.

Unlike BMW’s liquid-cooled boxer and Harley’s Twin-Cooled V-twin, in which coolant flows through the heads, coolant on the new Bonneville engines (there are three variants) passes through the heads AND cylinders. The fins are not just cosmetic though; they also provide engine cooling, though an air-to-liquid cooling ratio was not available at the static launch in London.

The new engine is a single-cam design, with eight valves operated via rockers. Throttle control is now fully electronic (read ride-by-wire), and switchable traction control and ABS are standard. Our hosts fired up the engines, giving credence to the claim that the exhaust has been tuned for improved sound — the new bikes do sound considerably throatier than the outgoing models.

Triumph are stressing that there will be a whole load of accessories available for these bikes along with kits to convert your Bonneville into a scrambler, brat tracker, track racer or even a café racer, which we assume will be targeted at the Street Twin. There will also be a full factory Thruxton R Race Performance kit, specifically developed for closed circuit competition.

Full specs and pricing will be released closer to the bikes’ respective world launch dates, which are around early December for the Street Twin and late February for the T120 and Thruxton models. All the new Bonnies will be built at Triumph’s Thailand plant.

You can see what we know about each model via the links below, or via the homepage where we’ve also posted them as individual articles.

Street Twin

The bare bones Bonnie with a smaller 900 cc engine, no ride modes, cast wheels, blacked out motor, shorty fenders, and a single disc up front. Ready for accessorizing according to Triumph. Click here for more info.

T120 and T120 Black

Classic styling with more chrome, wire wheels, pea shooter exhaust, tank pads and badge, long fenders, passenger grab rail and even a centre stand. Click here for more info.

Thruxton and Thruxton R

Wow! The Thruxton gets very sporty with a tuned up motor, 17 inch wheels and super sexy café racer styling. The R version (shown) also gets Brembo brakes, adjustable front USD fork and Ohlins piggyback rear suspension. Click here for more info.

FULL GALLERY

Check out all the pics that go with this story! Click on the main sized pic to transition to the next or just press play to show in a slideshow.