As Jonmac pointed out in a previous post of the prevalent attitude of the
time, I can say that it wasn't just limited to Triumph, or British cars
for that matter - In the early 70's I worked in a bicycle shop that my
father owned and not only did the attitude carry over to the British bikes,
but the French and Italian and in general, European philosophy was the
same. The bikes of the era came with a fixed close ratio set of gear
ratios, hard leather seats and iffy brakes, pretty much standard fare at
the time. As for those new fangled Japanese bikes, well what did they
know. After all, how long had they been making bikes anyway. . . You want
lower ratio gear sets, fine buy one ' them foreign things, you want a
softer seat, fine buy on of them Japanese bikes, you want better brakes,
fine. . .well you get the picture, people did just that. The Japanese were
more than willing to change for the market that was buying their product
and the Europeans weren't. By the time I stopped working there, the
European bikes which had changed little over the years were almost
non-existent while those rising sun makes had proliferated and were about
the only thing selling. Guess it really does pay to listen to what your
customers want cause if you don't there is usually someone else who will .
. .
Barry Schwartz (San Diego) bschwart@pacbell.net
72 PI, V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70 GT6+ (when I don't drive the Spit)
70 Spitfire (long term project)
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