By Steve Monroe

My first experience with a British vehicle was when I was home in the summer of 1962 between my Freshman and Sophomore semesters at the University of Kentucky. Back then, Freshmen weren’t allowed to have cars which included motorcycles and scooters. While home, a neighbor had a 1960 Triumph Tigress for sale. It was in mint condition at a good price so I purchased it. I rode it all that summer and had it shipped to my apartment in Lexington which made my trip to my classes ten minutes instead of thirty walking.

The Triumph Tigress was a scooter; designed to have good performance and handling for the motorcycle enthusiast. Mine was a 250 cc four-stroke twin, forced-air-cooled with a cruising speed of 55 to 60 mph and got 120 miles per imperial gallon which is over 144 miles per US gallon. It had dual exhaust, one on each side of the engine coming back into one muffler under the body. I left the clamps loose and when running straight exhaust it sounded like a big bike. One night I was low on fuel and stopped at the last gas station that was open 30 miles from home to fill up and the owner complained that what little gas he pumped didn’t even pay for the electricity to run the pump.

One afternoon back at school, I went to a Triumph shop to drool over a Triumph Bonneville and talked to one of the other customers about how much I would love to have one. That night the same guy, riding his police Harley, picked me up for speeding on the circle road around Lexington. He gave me a warning but he wasn’t nearly as friendly as earlier that day.

When at home during the summer I took it to a couple of drag strips and never got beaten by motorcycles in the 250 cc class. I must admit that a lot of times I was the only one in my class so I won a lot of trophies. It would come off the line with a wheel stand in first gear and then I would lay horizontal on the seat for less wind resistance.

Before I quit riding it I got two more tickets, one for drag racing and one for speeding. The second time the policeman said I would save a lot of money if I got mirrors.

I finally quit riding it when I had it revved too high and the pistons hit the overhead valves and knocked the valve guides out. I looked up the current selling price on Tigress and I found two for sale, one is asking $1,500 and the other is asking $2,999. I paid $300 for mine in mint condition.

I ended up buying a 1955 T-Bird with a built 392 ci Chrysler Hemi which is another story.