8. Triumph
Triumph was established in 1984 by John Bloor after the original company Triumph Engineering went into receivership, and is now the largest British motorcycle manufacturer.
In 1983, after the company went into receivership, John Bloor bought the name and manufacturing rights from the Official Receiver.
And because the new manufacturing plant and its designs were not able to compete against the Japanese, John Bloor decided against relaunching Triumph immediately.
In order to bridge the gap between the end of the old company and the start of the new company, the production of the old Bonneville was continued under licence by Les Harris of Racing Spares.
When the company was preparing to celebrate its 100th anniversary, on 15 March 2002, its main factory was destroyed by a fire which began at the rear of the facility.
And now fast-forwarding all this to 30 June 2012, we’ll discover that the company produced 49,000 motorcycles and employed 1,600 staff
