Triumph have just dropped this little bombshell. They’re calling it the Triumph Tiger Sport 660 and telling us it’s in its final testing stage. According to a teaser on the Triumph website, and a very cryptic email that doesn’t give much away, “the Tiger Sport 660 is set to bring triple engine performance advantages to the middleweight adventure sports category”. Very nice.
Now, Triumph have already got a reasonably strong contender in the ‘middleweight adventure sports category’. It’s in the shape of the Tiger 850 Sport, released (just this year; 2021). And in case you didn’t know, the Tiger 850 Sport replaces the standard version of the Tiger 900 (released in 2020) but has been designed to be more accessible, with more manageable power.
So which corner of the market is the Triumph Tiger Sport 660 intended to occupy then? Is it to replace the 850 Sport, after only a year? No, I don’t think it’s going to replace anything; certainly nothing in the Tiger range, anyway. Because if you look at the photographs, you’ll see the Tiger Sport 660 doesn’t really look like a tiger at all.
Trident or Tiger?
So what does it look like? Well, to me, it looks like a slightly taller Trident 660, with some extra bodywork. It appears to have the exact same engine and exhaust as the Trident, the same brakes, the same wheels. It also looks to have a similar chassis design and similar (if not the same) suspension.
On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to share anything at all with the Tiger 850 Sport, which you’d have to say was its closest Triumph stablemate.
No, what I think this really is, is a Trident, rather than a Tiger. A ‘Trident Touring Edition’, so to speak. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The Trident is a cracking little bike, but not necessarily a big mile-muncher. If you want a Trident, and going on long trips is your modus operandi, this thing might be just the ticket… whatever they decide to call it.
There’s no word on price yet, but I’d expect it to be around the £8k mark; as a point of reference, the Trident 660 is £7,395. I’d also expect the same, or similar, 80bhp and 64Nm of torque as the Trident. But I’m sure Triumph will give us some more information about the Tiger Sport 660, very soon. When they do, we’ll let you know.
