In one of the biggest announcements to hit the retro/cafe racer market this year, England’s Triumph released news of not one, but two all-new 400cc single-cylinder machines this week. And true to the re-born manufacturer’s form, the motorcycles are good-looking, well-designed and sure to capture the fancy of riders looking for ton-up machines without all the baggage. When I say baggage, I’m not referring to bolt-on luggage or saddlebags; these new 400s will retail for less than half the price of the previous, 120cc Thruxton, making then far more accessible to younger riders and folks not looking for massive payments for the next five (or six) years.
The platform designers at Triumph also realized a gaping hole in the factory custom market with the release of the Tracker, a sexy, stripped-down machine designed in the tradition of flattrack-inspired streetbikes. The last dedicated street tracker to emerge from a major manufacturer was Harley-Davidson’s XR1200 back in the early Aughts. Like the XR, the Triumph Tracker appears to he just rolled out of an AFT paddock, right down to the racy, bold paintwork, wide-flat handlebars and tapered tail section.
Its Thruxton 400 stablemate is a real beaut, dressed for burn-ups with a cafe seat cowl, clip-on bars mounted above the top triple clamp and fitted with a half-fairing very similar to the bodywork found on Triumph’s short-lived Speed Triple 1200RR. They also share an engine re-tune that takes the power output for both bokes to a respectable 41 ponies, while there’s a rich, 29 foot-pounds of torque on hand from as low as 3,000 RPM. Testing an S4 last year was a delight: unbelievably brisk handling, beginner-friendly light weight and enough oomph to actually prove faster than Honda’s 500cc Rebel Scrambler. The build quality was also noticeably refined with plenty of big bike detailing and no visible corners cut for a $5,000 motorcycle.
The new machines were considered inevitable successors to Triumph’s best-selling Speed 400 and 400 Scrambler, both of which were popular enough in their first year on sale to cut into Royal Enfield’s dominance of the sub-500cc category in several countries.
We’ve got our collective fingers crossed in hopes of receiving an invite to the global press launch for these two and we’ll be keeping you posted as soon as the opportunity to throw a leg over the saddle presents itself. 2026 looks like an exciting year to be into cafe racers- yet again.
