Déjà Design
DÉJÀ DESIGN
The Rocket III and Craig Vetter together again
DOES HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF? IT WAS 1969 WHEN BSA's Don Brown invited me to redesign the original Rocket 3. Now, 35 years later, the folks at Cycle World have extended the same invitation:
“What we need from you is a ‘What-If piece, as in what if Craig Vetter, among the first to recognize cruiser styling as an important American selling point, were to design a limited-edition Rocket III? What would it look like and why?”
My redesign of the 1969 Rocket 3 became the Triumph X-75 Hurricane of 1973, which was later to become one of British Bike magazine’s “100 Greatest Bikes Ever,” and then was selected for the Guggenheim Museum’s “Art of the Motorcycle” worldwide display. Now, just for fun, would I do it again?
“Great,” I said, “Lets take this opportunity to give CW readers a glimpse of how a motorcycle designer works.” Usually, I like to ride the motorcycle I am going to redo to get a good understanding of what kind of bike it is. After a while, it “tells me” what it wants to be. In this case, however, I had only press photos to work with and Matthew Miles’ personal account of riding the new Triumph Rocket III.
“Lots of torque,” he said over and over, “lots of torque.” But what is this bike for? Who is it for?
“The American market,” Matt replied. “Baby Boomers, they think.”
Terrific! This bike was designed for me! Or was it?
It is interesting that CW associates me with “cruiser” styling, because the word is relatively new-from the early ’80s when the motorcycle press invented the word as a way of calling Harley copies something other than “Harley copies.” To me, cruiser-style simply means American-style. Other things being equal, Americans want a nice-looking motorcycle, one we can stare at and feel happy about, a bike others notice with a big smile and a thumbs-up. We want our motorcycle to stand out. We want to love our motorcycles.
You’ll pardon the pun, but stylistically, the biggest problem the Rocket III has is its 2294cc motor. Other than its enormous size, there is nothing really noteworthy about it. V-Twins are familiar and pleasing to the eye; likewise, across-the-frame Lours, but the problem here is that the Triumph lump looks like it belongs in a tractor. It is too square to be in a motorcycle. The Lego Generation may someday buy bikes, but we ain’t it. Worse, from a symmetry standpoint it has three cylinders, which means three exhaust pipes, a designer’s nightmare. Aarrgghh! “Don’t ask me to design another bike with three cylinders,” I wailed after coming up with the X-75’s kinked triple-array.
Now, here’s a paradox: I think the Rocket Ill’s styling comes off as too “American.” Huh?! Let me explain.
This bike was designed in the U.K. for the U.S. market, and it certainly checks off all the standard cruiser styling elements, but the designer of a motorcycle for Americans should be an American motorcyclist. We have a sense of design aesthetics based upon our unique past. For exam ple, the imagery that fills my brain (and most boomers) comes from magazines like Rod & Custom, Car Craft, Hot Rod, Street Rodder and Popular Mechanics (Cycle World didn't show up until 1962). What looks good to us does not necessarily look good to somebody from anoth er culture. Personally, I have a lot of trouble with
"pointy" Japanese design. The shapes on a Harley are far more comfortable to my eyes. Not that the Rocket III needs to crib from Milwaukee. Nothing wrong with keeping some ties to Triumph's glory days. To American baby boomers, the English are Allies. We fought Hitler together. We fight terrorists today. We like the English and we love anything that says Triumph on it. Besides Triumphs were
about half-American, anyway. Remember, it was America that gave Triumph the Bonneville model name, Steve McQueen who helped make Triumph cool,
Gary Nixon and Gene Romero who added to the company’s trophy case. And unlike Brits, most Americans don’t make a distinction between Meriden and Hinckley Triumphs. Triumphs are Triumphs to us.
We are also romantics, at a time in our lives when we can live out the dreams of our childhood. This is why so many Harleys and ’57 Chevys are on the road. If today’s Rocket III really is for baby-booming Americans, it should conjure up some Triumph dreams of our youth. I’m not sure the new Triple does.
So, let’s fix that. It’s a Rocket, right? Let’s see if we can make it look like it is about to blast-off! The changes I propose for our special-edition Triumph are dramatic but do-able because as a practical designer I want it to be possible to actually build this bike.
First, we must smooth out the blocky engine. Dropping the gas tank (reminiscent of the old T160 Triple’s) hides
and rounds out the motor’s rear comers. A minimal belly pan does the same up front.
I understand that the current tank is big and bulbous because it carries lots of fuel and hides some intake plumbing. Its profile, however, must be lowered. We can stuff some plumbing into the enlarged sidecover area and into the windshield/headlight structure.
And that chromed three-bump thingie on the tank’s left side covering the EFI’s throttle bodies? Got to go. Automobile designers don’t want to take the time to finish their parts, so they cover them; when you open the hood of a car today, what passes for an
elaborate manifold is a masquerading plastic cover. I want to see those injecj tors! I want to see stainless braided lines.
Truth is the essence of a motorcycle.
The exhaust has to be three separate pipes and they all must be on the same side where we can see them. Three distinct pipes say “Triple!” which is very important. My American heritage wants big, zoomy dragster pipes to blast out the gasses. I’d have to fuss over them for a long while to get them exactly right, but I don’t see any reason that they cannot be routed into and out of whatever muffler/catalytic converter they need-similar to what Triumph has already done.
So there you have it, the initial thought process involved in designing the American Rocket III, a motorcycle that I would be proud to own and ride.
Will history really repeat itself? Only if this motorcycle or something like it actually gets produced. There is a lot more to be done, of course, but this could be the start of something big.
Craig Vetter
