It’s not for nothing that Triumph calls one of its motorcycles the Bonneville. The British manufacturer held the record for the fastest motorcycle on the salt flats for fifteen years (notwithstanding a brief 33-day interruption) from 1955 to 1970. Now it’s on a mission to get it back again with the two-wheeled streamliner you see here, and it just took a big step in that direction.
With TT racing legend Guy Martin at the handlebars, the Triumph Infor Rocket Streamliner just achieved a top speed of 274.2 miles per hour on the salt flats. That may not be enough to take the world record just yet, but it does make this the fastest Triumph yet – beating Bob Leppan’s Gyronaut X1 that was officially clocked at 245.667 mph and unofficially topped 264 mph.
Revealed just last week, the Infor Rocket is like no Triumph you’d find on the street. It’s built around a carbon-Kevlar monocoque measuring 25.5 feet long and packs a pair of turbocharged Triumph Rocket III engines, fueled by methanol to kick out 1,000 horsepower.
It’s the latest in a long line of Triumph streamliners, including the Devil’s Arrow, Texas Cee-gar, Dudek Streamliner, and the aforementioned Gyronaut X1. To take the world record, though it’ll need to do even better. The high mark was set by Rocky Robinson in the Top Oil-Ack Attack, which was officially clocked at 376.363 mph in 2010.
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