We’re only a few months away from the big European motorcycle shows, which means a host of brand-new bikes will be on display for the first time. For some, it’s a chance to take it all in and daydream about a future purchase, others are hooked and prepare to lay down a deposit at their local dealer. Then there are but a tiny few who see in a single machine a future business with endless potential. That has always been the relationship between Jody Millhouse and the Triumph Bonneville Bobber, and together they’ve conquered the world. And with examples like this bumblebee beauty, it’s easy to see why, few motorcycles have the on-road presence of a wide-wheel Thornton Hundred Bobber.
As we featured earlier this year, Jody and his team have taken the concept they created with the Triumph product and now have a limited production machine of their own, but the original idea of a fat-tyred British beast remains a massive success. They’ve been bought by people from all over the globe, with celebrities and hard-charging road riders alike keen to be seen on the Thornton Hundred product. The public has loved what Jody’s achieved too; the bikes always get a massive reception when they climb the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and few motorcycles can shred a tyre like the supercharged variants.
But the most common, if you can use that word, bikes to roll out of the TH workshop are the Triumph Bobbers fitted with the V4 wide-wheel kit. This stunning yellow unit is one such example and allows us to take a look behind the scenes at why a single idea to transform a Triumph has been such a huge success. The very first thing you need to understand about Jody is that before starting TH, he was a production engineer for one of the world’s largest manufacturers of mobile elevating work platforms (cherry pickers). And if you’re hoisting people that high into the air, failure is simply not an option.
That level of engineering quality, thought, and design is evident in every single product that makes up the Thornton Hundred parts catalogue. A bike like this starts with the wide-wheel kit, and unlike most of them that you see around, the stock hubs are not used. Instead, both front and rear are beautifully engineered and produced billet aluminium hubs, designed for the big rubber and not just as a compromise. And that rubber adds extra weight; there is no getting away from that. So, to provide the ultimate axle in strength, Jody engineered a set of titanium axles as part of the conversion.
The rims themselves are the stunning lightweight Takasago Excel items, which are laced to the custom hubs with a set of chemically dipped black spokes, and anodised nipples. Once built, the wheels measure 17 inches in diameter and are 5 inches wide, front and rear, which allows for the fat Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa rubber to be fitted. Now you’ve got your rolling stock, but try fitting them to the front end and you’re going to have a problem! That’s where the custom-machined top and bottom billet triple clamps come in, extra wide and joined together by a titanium steering stem.
Any bobber worth its salt has the fenders seriously cut back, and in this example, Jody has gone one step further and completely deleted the rear unit altogether. At the front end, you get a seriously cool bit of kit, all one piece, including the mounts: “Crafted from a single piece of billet for exceptional durability and a robust appearance.” The rest of the factory bodywork remains relatively standard, with a new machined filler cap added before the paint gun lays down the eye-popping yellow, complete with bold Triumph graphics in black.
It takes a lot to overshadow such a colour, but in addition to his wide-wheel kits, the other thing that put Jody on the map was his exhausts. And this bike gets the one that divides the public the most! “The famous one, the Handcrafted Twisted Exhaust, exploded on our social media due to its complexity and all-out wild style. These essentially work as 2-2 pipes with no X-piping, resulting in a pure, unadulterated sound with no baffles.” It sure is a wild bit of gear, and the rest of the engine is finished with blacked-out throttle bodies and some TH side covers.
To add a big improvement to the handling, the rear end benefits from a Fox shock, while the braking package features TH’s wave-style discs, with Brembo calipers to provide the clamping power. All of the add-ons are high-end, including Motogadget bar-end indicators, an all-in-one Kellermann rear cluster, and the TH side-mounted number plate holder with super-neat LED lights for illumination. To finish the build, you get two classic Bobber parts: a Bates-style headlight and a beautifully upholstered seat with paint-matching stitching. These bikes definitely divide opinion, personally I love them, and over 2-million people have watched the YouTube video explaining how the wide wheel conversion works, those numbers just don’t lie.
[ For sale at Collecting Cars ]