BEST OF BRITISH - TRIUMPH
Best of British Triumph charts the turbulent and rich history of one of the world's best-known motorcycle manufacturers, with examinations of every significant bike that contributed to the Triumph story.

That story takes us back more than 100 years, to the time when a couple of German immigrants settled in Coventry and began manufacturing bicycles. Fitting a motor to one of their bicycles was the obvious step once the internal combustion engine had become established, and so the first Triumph motorcycle puttered its way around the leafy lanes of Warwickshire in 1905.

This DVD traces the history of the marque from that historic first bike, filmed in the National Motorcycle Museum, to the launch of the 2009 Street Triple R. For a full seven decades, Triumph enjoyed success after success, then disaster struck as the original company collapsed - along with the rest of the British bike industry. However, during those first 70 years Triumph motorcycles had become among the best known with truly iconic models like the Speed Twin, the Tiger 100, the Thunderbird and the Bonneville. Such was the reputation, the Triumph name refused to die.

Enthusiast Les Harris, under license from the brand name owners, kept the legend alive making small batches of Bonneville twins in his little factory in Devon. In the 1980s, salvation arrived in the form of British businessman John Bloor, who combined his capital with the goodwill Triumph still enjoyed, to resurrect the marque. Thanks to good designers, managers and enthusiastic production workers, Triumph is back on the world stage, competing against rivals from Japan, Germany and the USA.

BEST OF BRITISH - BSA
This in-depth video tells the full story of the BSA, from its beginnings in the armaments trade of the eighteenth century, through the glory years of their domination of the world motorcycle market, to the final sorry climax.

At the National Motorcycle Museum we review the greatest bikes to bear the unique ‘Piled Arms’ trademark, from the ‘Roundtank’ and ‘Sloper’ models of the 20s and 30s to the incomparable ‘Gold Stars’, ‘Road Rockets’ and ‘Rocket 3’ machines that were the top British bikes of the '60s and '70s.

We also visit the Sammy Miller Museum to check out a unique road racer, which could have brought BSA a world championship in the mid-Fifties. The bike never did race, but six-times World Champion Geoff Duke O.B.E. tested it and tells us why he is convinced that it could have been a Grand Prix winner.

This DVD features interviews with American riders Bobby Hill, who scored BSA’s first Daytona 200 win in 1954 and Dick Mann who repeated this in 1971 alongside team mate Don Emde who took a Daytona 3rd in the same year.

Double World Motocross Champion Jeff Smith reminisces about his title wins along with his teammate and BSA competition manager Brian Martin.

Brian also talks about winning the Maudes Trophy for BSA as part of a three-man team, covering 5,000 miles around Europe on standard production Star Twin models in 1952.

Norman Vanhouse, Gold Star specialist Eddie Dow and Chris Vincent also remember their BSA achievements and experiences.

Action footage, interviews and authoritative commentary reveal just why the BSA motorcycle will always be regarded as one of the very ‘Best of British’.

BEST OF BRITISH - NORTON
Norton is one of the most evocative names in the history of British motorcycling.

It has a magical effect on motorcyclists even now, around a quarter of a century after the marque’s heyday. This DVD tells the whole Norton story.

At the Sammy Miller Motorcycle Museum we examine the oldest Norton of them all, a 1905 model with a Peugeot engine. And Sammy describes two of the rarest racers in existence – the horizontal-engined Model F and the revolutionary ‘kneeler’ streamliner.

At the National Motorcycle Museum we look at every significant Norton over the past ninety years – from the 1907 winner of the TT twin-cylinder class right up to the unique rotary-engined racer that won Norton’s last TT in 1992.

Leading motorcycle journalist Alan Cathcart track tests the Formula 750 Nortons of the Seventies including the actual 1973 TT winner with its unique monococque chassis.

Plus we talk to famous Norton Racers – the legendary Geoff Duke and the winner of that 1992 TT, Steve Hislop, along with engineers, designers and executives who played key roles in the Norton story.

With classic rallies and races on the Isle of Man, Assen in Holland and Daytona, USA and the Norton Owners Club on a pilgrimage from the National Motorcycle Museum to the old Norton factory in Birmingham, this is a production that pays full homage to Norton’s glorious past and which looks with hope into the future for a name that was once synonymous with ‘The Best of British’.