Triumph has revealed the winner of this year’s inaugural Bobber Build-Off Challenge as Laguna Ashford Triumph with their entry, The Drag Racer. The winning build was announced at the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride (DGR) in London on 29th September. Triumph UK launched its first ever Build-Off at The Bike Shed show earlier this year. The competition attracted entries from 13 Triumph dealerships around the UK, who used a combination of off-the-shelf parts and hand-crafted engineering skills to design and personalise their beautiful Bonneville Bobbers.
A public vote saw the three finalists – Pure Triumph Wellingborough; Peterborough Triumph and Laguna Ashford – enter into a head-to-head showdown, judged by an experienced panel, comprising of football legend Ian Wright, The Bike Shed’s Dutch van Someren and Triumph’s own Chief Product Officer; Steve Sargent. The motorcycle-enthusiast judges combined opinions to agree, collectively, on this year’s overall winner; Laguna Ashford Triumph. The team were presented with a custom tank trophy to celebrate their creative, well executed win.
The Ashford team assembled a Thruxton track racer fairing to their untouched Bonneville Bobber. This accelerated them towards the origin of a Bobber drag bike-themed idea, steering them down the straight and towards a retro classic drag bike end goal, making perfect sense to name the build as The Drag Racer.
”The whole silhouette just looks right from the first moment you see it, the retro paint creates a bodywork line that looks fresh out of a factory design studio. When you dig a little deeper behind the concept, the Bobber’s surprising start-line performance and torque is more drag-bike, so creating a build with pretensions for increased performance feels more appropriate than its competition,” shared Dutch.
Steve Sargent, Chief Product Officer, Triumph Motorcycles added further “The Laguna Drag Racer is a stunning piece of design and is probably the least expected way to customise the original bike. The bike has a stance and design language that emphasises the performance angle of the motorcycle and I am sure that anyone who has ridden the Bobber can testify this is a bike that makes you smile when you open the throttle. What has really impressed me with this bike is how good it looks from every angle. The bodywork flows naturally from front to back and is incredibly well-executed. Dare I say it, I actually like it more than the original Hurricane that inspired it. Now I just need a chance to ride it.”
Details of the 13 finalist Bobber Build-Off entrants can be found on the Triumph website with access to images and the background of each build. Triumph Accessories extensive range, available through Triumph dealerships, facilitate the freedom of customisation from styling to performance, adapting both bike and ride to suit. Triumph was once again the lead motorcycle sponsor of the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, making this the brand’s sixth year of helping to raise awareness and funds for the DGR’s two chosen causes, prostate cancer research and men’s mental health.
