A bit late we may be, but this month we are featuring the 1959 Triumph T120 Bonneville Pre Unit as our bike of the month. As it is the 50th anniversary of the bike we are featuring Bushy Bester’s bike in New Zealand as well as some history which he has kindly put together for us. We have supplied lots of Triumph Pre Unit spares for this restoration.
“My Bonneville is number 1387 of 1875 originally South African now living in peaceful retirement in New Zealand.
This is a single down tube T120 Bonneville and was manufactured on the 10th of April 1959. It was dispatched ex-works fitted with a “Quickly detachable rear wheel” and solo gearing on order number 3326.
The receiving dealer was T. Foster & Sons, Port Elizabeth, Cape Province, South Africa. This was one of a batch of 401 machines built between 10th and 20th April 1959. In total, there were 1875 of this model for this year manufactured and possibly only about 60 or 70 left in the world today. I have records and photos of 51 known 195 Bonneville’s collected over15 years and dealing with dealer’s worldwide.
I have most of the information including build batch numbers and dates, but not all the other information and need help from other owners of the ’59 Bonne’s to help solve queries and provide information for other owners of ’59 Bonne’s.
One of my life’s quests is to try and determine when the colour change from Tangerine and Pearl-gray to Azure blue and Pearl-gray took place by date of manufacture and engine number, as you may know there were 2 colours for the 1959 Triumph T120 Bonneville Pre Unit season.
By listing your bike and providing engine, frame numbers and original bike colour to my data base by either emailing Danny of Burton Bike Bits or me with your detailed information, we can all benefit. This information is not for the general public use. Please email a photo of the engine number and a coloured photo of the bike.”
Contact Bushy with your bike’s details
