Cheap Thai Triumphs? I don't think so

With old age creeping up on me, I decided that I had time for one last chance at mortality. These things of course are best planned. So as every husband knows, you start moaning at the wife until she is so sick of hearing about it, she finally capitulates and allows the purchase of yet another motorbike. With the dodgy knee and replacement hip,

I had to make this quick, before: A.The joints finally give up the ghost and I can’t my leg over (Literally) Or B.She works out that with all these artificial joints I am probably worth a few bob just in scrap metal value. “But, Darling this is not any motorbike, it’s a Triumph.

They are manufactured in Thailand now (Thailand is now where my wife and I call home, retirement and all that). I was reading an old article in MCN, (Triumph Cheaper for who? 22nd August 2008) and the thread following the story reckons it is 30% cheaper to make them in Thailand.

It’s a bargain honest!” So I think to myself no point in doing this half heartedly, the old bugger in me just has to have the Thruxton. All the old memories coming flooding back, I bulk order the Brylcream, which is strange with my receding hairline, one jar one would have lasted a life time.

I check out those suspect Davida helmets, the flying jacket etc, everything ready to order on line. Checked the price of the Thruxton in the UK a mere Pounds 6,399, minus that 30% it’s a snip. Went on to the Triumph site checked out the colour schemes for 2009,

Jet black with a gold stripe and Davida even have a matching helmet what more could a man ask for. So a quick call into Britbikes Bangkok, my grubby mitts clutched around a pile of Thai Bahts, “A Triumph Thruxton, please. No need to wrap it I’ll take me with me.”

The last words I heard before waking up in the emergency cardiac unit “Our pleasure sir that will be 565,000 Thai baht (Pounds 10,120)” What happened to the 30% cheaper to build in Thailand? What do I do with all that brylcreem? So now I am reduced to “But darling it’s a Honda Wave.

That’s a direct descendent of the Honda Cub, the most popular bike in the world” How the mighty have fallen. My dreams shattered and all because of corporate greed. If it is 30% cheaper to make in Thailand, plus there’s that 15% VAT in the UK, that would make the Thai price without taxes at the factory gate including the dealer mark up around Pounds 3,629, so that means that the taxes in Thailand would be approx 178% .

Anyone in Triumph like to enlighten me on this huge cost differential? The only upside to the whole thing was at least I didn’t order that Davida helmet.