Triumph Motorcycles Tigress 250 1965
In typical British motorcycle industry fashion, they left it a bit late to join in the post war scooter boom that was by 1959 pretty much saturated by European models with sweet sounding names like “Bella” “Prima” “Brio” and suchlike.
And the Japanese were just around the corner with non-offensive names like “Rabbit” or “Silver Pigeon” for their scooters. So in a market “owned” by overseas made machinery, the Triumph Tigress came on stream along with the less aggressively named BSA clone, the Sunbeam at the 1959 motorcycle shows. Arriving about 10 years too late these machines never really made big inroads in the market place and the “Buy British” mentality wearing a bit thin. Powered by a 250cc twin cylinder four stroke, a four speed foot operated gearbox and some even with electric start; these scooters had it all on paper to be a real winner. In reality they suffered from terrible build quality and were described by many as nice to own if somebody else paid the repair bills.
Our 250cc Tigress in the collection is among the last of them being a 1965 model and by then most of the faults were ironed out but sadly too little too late.
TECHNICAL
- 250cc twin cylinder OHV 4 stroke engine
- Four speed gearbox gear driven from motor (no primary chain)
- Oil bath rear chain drive
- Available as a BSA or Triumph
- Electric start an optional extra