I love this!
It's a beautiful layout with vibrant colours, but it makes absolutely no sense!
Go modern, Go Triumph - Fair enough. Despite it's pushrod engine the three-cylinder Hurricane looked pretty futuristic. With its speed-stripes and multitude of exhaust pipes it looked like it was designed by Hanna Barbera (
Scooby Do, Whacky Races etc.) but in fact it was designed by Craig Vetter who is probably better known for the Windjammer fairing and various fuel-efficient streamliners.
It was way ahead of its time in terms of styling and it's hard to believe that such a conservative company (Triumph of Merriden) could produce something so positively psychedelic!*
So, on the one hand we have
Go Modern, Go Triumph and a crazy acid trip of a motorcycle and it all makes a certain amount of sense if you're going after a young, West Coast, American market.
But then in the foreground, entirely upstaging the bike, we have a diamond encrusted posh tottie armed with a riding crop and a fucking jaguar! The girl is lovely and she seems happy enough - I imagine David Niven is off to one side, reassuringly holding her fur coat and a glass of cognac. But the jaguar looks a bit unsure of himself - he's thinking, why the fuck am I here? I usually do car commercials!
As a designer myself, I can imagine how that happened. The graphic design company got the brief from the dealerships who wanted to tap into the youth market. The designers thought this was a great idea, got off their tits on acid by way of research and came up with something that looked like a Jimi Hendrix poster, all paisley and psychedelic typography.
This didn't fly with the mobsters from the dealerships though. They wanted it Frank-Sinatrafied, y'know, a bit more Vegas! Hence the showgirl, the diamonds and the jaguar. Then in a vain attempt to pull it all together, the copywriter came up with
"For Wild-life enthusiasts everywhere."
It's rubbish!
But that doesn't matter! It's wonderful!
The past is a foreign country... it's nice to go there on holiday.
Illustration - Murray Robertson
*In fact it was the American dealerships that demanded the Hurricane, it wasn't really a Merriden initiative.
#Triumph #TriumphHurricane #CraigVetter #Mercenary #MercenaryGarage