Triumph Takes To The Air With New Tiger 1200 Testing Prototype Photos

What's better than a tiger? A flying tiger!

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Janaki Jitchotvisut

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Sep 16, 2021 at 9:20am ET

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It’s September 16, 2021, which marks about two weeks after Triumph gave the world its first glimpse at its official Tiger 1200 testing prototype photos. Now, the folks at Hinckley are back with yet another trio of testing photos for the same bike. It’s not a hoverbike, but you wouldn’t know it from these photos, which all show the new Tiger floating, not crouching.

Triumph also released a very short video, giving us a few seconds to witness a test rider pounding the new Tiger 1200 testing prototype around off-road. Although the music is amped for maximum dramatic effect, the sound of the bike is mixed quite well. Thus, we get plenty of time to hear the new Tiger growl menacingly as the rider sends it flying in the dirt with ease.

As with the Tiger 900, Triumph says it’s making use of its T-Plane crankshaft with its 1-3-2 firing order. Back when Triumph introduced the T-Plane firing order at the end of 2019, Cycle World’s Kevin Cameron wrote an excellent technical breakdown about it. His conclusion was that it’s all about the character, and added that it’s not clear what benefits this firing order might have for ride feel.

Gallery: Triumph Tiger 1200 Official Testing Prototype Photoset 2

For its part, Triumph stressed that it offers “greater character and tractability at low RPM, plus improved off-road feel” in its official description about the Tiger 900. No one’s going to be mad if your bike sounds cool, of course—least of all you. If the claims about the T-Plane as described for the Tiger 900 are also more than just pretty words on paper, so much the better.

While it’s good to see the Tiger 1200 out playing in the dirt (as nature intended), Triumph still hasn’t announced any details regarding an official launch for the production version. Could it make an appearance at EICMA 2021? Of course it could, but does it have to? Not necessarily. After all, Triumph was so excited about the Speed Triple 1200 RR that it didn’t want to make us all wait until November, so it just did its 2020s thing with a worldwide digital launch instead.