Triumph Scrambler 900 and Speed Twin 900 Coming This Year

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It’s all in the name; Triumph is renaming the Street Twin the Speed Twin 900. (Triumph/)

Ever since the Triumph Street Triple arrived in 2007 the term “Street” has been synonymous with “smaller capacity” in Triumph’s nomenclature. But that’s changing as the 900cc Street Scrambler and Street Twin are to be rebadged for the 2023 lineup.

New documents published by the US Environmental Protection Agency, listing bikes that have been approved for sale as 2023 models, show the Triumph “Scrambler 900″ and “Speed Twin 900″ will replace the Street Scrambler and Street Twin in the new model range. However, all indications are that the updates will be limited to the bikes’ names and paintwork, with no mechanical alterations.

The current 900cc “Street” models appeared shortly after Triumph unveiled its current iteration of the Bonneville, which debuted an all-new 1,200cc liquid-cooled twin in 2016. The Street Twin came the same year as the first of the new platform of the 900cc version of the engine, dubbed the “High Torque” engine by Triumph—the Street Scrambler emerged a year later using the same motor.

This is from the official paperwork filed in Australia for the name change. (Triumph/)

As the Bonnie-based range grew, Triumph would add the 1,200cc Speed Twin and Scrambler 1200 in 2019—as larger-engined equivalent models—and now the company appears to have decided that it’s simpler to just use the bikes’ engine capacities in their names instead of relying on the term Street to distinguish the lower-powered, smaller-engined machines.

The EPA documents show no changes to the bikes in terms of emissions equipment or performance, and the fact that the change will only be to the name is confirmed in Australian type-approval filings for the same Scrambler 900 and Speed Twin 900 machines.

Those Aussie documents include more technical details and even a representative photo of each bike, but the name changes are listed as updates to the existing Street Scrambler and Street Twin approvals rather than the introduction of new models. A note on the Speed Twin’s approval reads: “This variation submission is to simply change the commercial name (Marketing Designation) from ‘Street Twin’ to ‘Speed Twin 900′ within the presently certified ‘DP04′ model.”

Likewise, this is the official paperwork for the name change to the Street Twin into the Speed Twin 900. (Triumph/)

DP04 is Triumph’s internal code for the Street Twin/Speed Twin 900. The note goes on to say: “only the side panels change” with the update.

It’s the same story with the Street Scrambler’s rebranding as Scrambler 900, with the Australian approval note reading: “This variation submission is to simply change the commercial name (Marketing Designation) from ‘Street Scrambler’ to ‘Scrambler 900′ within the presently certified ‘DC04′ model [DC04 is the Street Scrambler/Scrambler 900 code]… only the side panels change…”

The simplification of Triumph’s branding makes sense and brings the former Street models into line with the policy used on the firm’s Tiger lineup, where the Tiger 900 and Tiger 1200 ranges mirror one another but are easily identified by their capacities. Elsewhere, Triumph is a little more vague. On the Bonneville, for instance, T120 means 1,200cc and T100 means 900cc.

Dropping the “Street” designation from the Street Scrambler and Street Twin also raises the question whether Triumph will do the same with the Street Triple. There are indications that it might. The latest iterations of the larger Speed Triple include their engine size as part of the model names—the Speed Triple 1200 RS and Speed Triple 1200 RR—while the current Street Triple’s designation makes no mention of its 765cc capacity. Could it become the Speed Triple 765 (or perhaps Speed Triple 800, given that the Speed Triple 1200 is actually 1,160cc)? Or, after 15 years of production, is the Street Triple name now too well recognised to require such a change?

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