Today in motorcycle history, January 8, 1970

 

  Don Brown, Vice President BSA, National Sales, resigns.

  Don Brown conceived the original idea of the Triumph X75 Hurricane in 1968.  Brown felt that the BSA/Triumph triples needed a different look to succeed in the USA, and he engaged designer Craig Vetter to give the BSA A75 a customised face-lift, with a brief to make it "sleeker and more balanced". It was a secret project that was funded by Brown out of BSA, Inc. petty cash on a weekly basis.

  Vetter created the Triumph Hurricane in the summer of 1969, and in October 1969 he unveiled the prototype with "BSA" on the tank as the new ‘Rocket Three’. Peter Thornton (President of BSA/Triumph North America) and the American officials were impressed, and Vetter's bike was then sent to the UK, but the bike arrived in England just as the BSA marque was about to be ended. At BSA-Triumph's design facility at Umberslade Hall, the design was seen as too "trendy" by chief designer Bert Hopwood; but after very positive public reaction to the design when it appeared on the front of US magazine Cycle World in October 1970, the UK managers changed their minds. They realised they had a large stock of obsolete BSA Rocket-3 parts that could now be turned into a premium-priced motorcycle.

  Engineer Steve Mettam was given the job of supervising production for the 1972/3 season; and the Vetter BSA Rocket3 became the Triumph X75 Hurricane. 1,183 engines were put aside for X75 production. However, BSA was facing bankruptcy and the design went into a limited production run of 1200 as the Triumph X-75 Hurricane in 1972.  Production stopped in 1973.