I wouldn't necessarily say that Triumph and Harley were "building pieces of crap" at that time, Paul, but I WOULD say that by the 1970s both of these concerns were building products that were at least 10 to 15 years "behind the times", anyway.
If by the mid-60s Harley would have began development of the EVO motor and the BSA/Triumph concern would have began development of something along the line of these Hinckley Twins(neither of which would have been THAT "cutting-edge" at the time but still state-of-the-art, as Honda already had their DOHC CB450 in production by then), then I doubt these companies would have had to experience the dark days that they did and which would begin less than a decade later.
You might know of the last gasp and much too late and ill-fated effort of the BSA/Triumph company to develop the BSA Fury/Triumph Bandit DOHC 350cc twin-cylinder models, and which due to the falling sales figures of this company's product by the late-60s, created an environment within the company of shoestring R&D financing in order to bring this much needed updating of their product to market.
Yep, it was just a case of piss poor product planning, if ya ask me!
(...btw Kevin..please accept this "Keyboard Captain of Industry's" apologies for the use of that "piss poor product planning" alliterative phraseology there!)
Yep! Just like a good Single Malt Scotch, you might call me "an acquired taste" TOO.(among the many OTHER things you may care to call me, of course)
