Triumph Motorcycles is one of this country's great manufacturing success stories.

Born from the ashes of Triumph Engineering, the iconic British marque that went into receivership in 1981, the Midlands-based business produced its first range of three- and four-cylinder road bikes in 1991 – and has barely looked back since. 

With state-of-the-art factories in Thailand, India and Brazil, as well as Hinckley in Leicestershire, 'new Triumph' not only competes with Japanese giants such as Honda and Yamaha but also leads the way in key segments of the two-wheel market, both at home and abroad.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the hotly contested arena of modern classics.

These retro machines are, as the name suggests, new models styled to evoke memories of famous bikes from the past. 

With the average age of the UK motorcyclist now comfortably over 50 and many younger riders drawn to the perceived cool of the 1960s and '70s, nostalgia is big business in the biking world. And few do it quite like Triumph.

That's partly because it has such a rich heritage to dip into: a long history of iconic motorcycles, including the Trident, Trophy, Speed Twin and, of course, the Bonneville T120 - a machine as synonymous with Hollywood's coolest biker, Steve McQueen, as it is with the North Circular's hard-riding café racers of the 1960s.

But there's more to producing a successful retro machine than simply having an iconic brand and healthy archive. Triumph is also a specialist in building motorcycles that seamlessly blend silhouettes and engine configurations of the past with technology from the present...

I recently travelled to sun-kissed California to test the updated 2026 Triumph Bonneville line-up.

While the lines and look of the latest Bobber or Scrambler, Speed Twin or Bonneville whisk you back in time, their suspension, brakes and tyres, as well as the 900cc and 1,200cc twin-cylinder engines that power them, are as bang up to date as those in any modern street bike.

The heavily finned air-cooled engines of the 20th century have been replaced by new liquid-cooled motors, complete with water jacket, radiator, water pump and plumbing. 

Carburettors have been swapped for low emission fuel injection systems and shin bruising kickstarts have been dumped for push-button electric starts. 

But you wouldn't know it. 

The new Bonneville parallel twin engines are, on first glance at least, dead ringers for the old ones.

Triumph's engineers and design teams go to enormous lengths to seamlessly merge old and new, to tuck away components such as the sensors and electrical systems necessary on a 2026 machine, while carefully enhancing the traditional look with the latest LED lighting, wider tyres, and meatier brakes and chassis. 

The bikes' fluid handling and brisk performance may be from 2026 but the elegance of yesteryear is lovingly preserved.

Perhaps the most carefully hidden feature of all is safety-enhancing electronic rider aids: traction control, anti-lock brakes (ABS) and a choice of riding modes that allow the rider to alter the power characteristics of the engine to suit the conditions. 

At the launch of its 2026 range of modern classics in Oceanside, this month Triumph revealed that each machine now comes equipped with an Inertial Measurement Unit, or IMU, which detects and measures the bike's orientation through six axes, allowing the key rider aids, traction control and ABS, to be made lean sensitive. 

That means they will now prevent a skid if you apply too much throttle, or a locked wheel if you grab the brakes too hard, not just when the bike is upright but even when is banked over into a corner.

Five sport classic models to choose from 

There are five updated models in the range. 

The 900cc Bonneville T100 is the entry model. Starting from £9,699, it is the latest iterations of the enduringly popular classic. 

For those wanting for more power, the 1,200cc Bonneville T120 provide the traditional looks but with more poke and a higher £12,195 price tag. 

The Scrambler 900, featuring a heavily modified chassis and long travel suspension for retro desert-racing looks, is £10,395.

The Speedmaster 1200, the laidback custom cruiser, and the Bobber 1200, a pared down Bonneville with cunningly hidden rear suspension to give a custom hardtail look, both start from £13,795 and represent the top price point in the modern classic fleet.

All five are beautifully built and finished. 

They share a mechanical solidity that differentiates Triumph's modern classics from many others. 

Looking at just one, the Scrambler 900, there's an undeniable sense of 1970s cool too. 

High mounted twin exhaust, wire wheels, long-travel suspension for dealing with jumps set it aside from the other Bonnies. 

Its smooth parallel twin churns out 64bhp and lots of easy torque while the handling is easy going but capable of more should you want to get sporty.

Crucially though, Triumph has made it easier than ever to ride, with a much improved safety margin, thanks to those lean-sensitive rider aids. 

You rarely need these electronic safety nets during day-to-day riding but lose rear tyre grip on a slimy cats eye or spilt diesel when you are carrying lean angle and the traction control will cut the engine power enough to prevent a heart stopping moment. 

It's like climbing up the side of a mountain face with two safety ropes and a crash net to break your fall. 

And if the front tyre locks on a slippery surface, the ABS will ensure you get around the corner safely too.

With one of the riding modes available on all the 2026 modern classics also tailored to riding in the rain, rider confidence and enjoyment are now far higher in slippery and unpredictable conditions. 

And for newer riders with an A2 category licence, a lower power version of each bike is available via a dealer-fitted kit.

We love the carefully balanced fusion of digital and analogue in these modern classics. 

It's amazing to think that all these Bonnies are direct descendants of the bikes ridden and loved by our parents and grandparents. 

But while bikers of the 1960s and '70s would relish the traditional looks of today's machines and be blown away by their performance and reliability, the level of safety engineered into every aspect of riding would be from another planet.