Triumph Daytona 660 Spied

[Admin]

Triumph is testing a new sportbike we believe to be the Daytona 660 based on the Trident. (Bernhard M. Höhne/bmh-images/)

The market for fully fledged sportbikes has been in decline for the last couple of decades as liter-class superbikes and 600cc-class supersport machines have adopted a laser focus on track supremacy at the expense of real-world usability. But times are changing and a class of less extreme, less exotic, more affordable, street-oriented machines have been hitting the market and Triumph is about to enter the fray with a new model called the Daytona 660.

Triumph left the supersport arena back in 2017, dropping the Daytona 675 from its lineup in the face of slowing sales and tightening emissions standards. There was a revival of the name in 2020 when the limited-edition Daytona 765 celebrated Triumph’s deal to supply engines to the Moto2 championship, but with just 1,530 built, it sold out rapidly and there’s been no Daytona in the range since. The disappearance of the name marked the end of a lineage that ran back to the earliest days of the John Bloor–owned era of Triumph, starting with the Daytona 750 and 1000 models launched in 1991.

Triumph’s last sportbike was the Daytona Moto2 765. (Oli Tennent/)

However, it’s long been clear that the Daytona’s absence was likely to be a temporary one. Last year alone Triumph filed at least four separate trademark applications for the name “Triumph Daytona” in a variety of territories to ensure nobody else snaps up the name, and now the prototype for a new Daytona has been spotted on test at the company’s facility in Spain.

This right-side view shows that the new bike shares a lot of components with the Triumph Trident and Tiger Sport 660. (Bernhard M. Höhne/bmh-images/)

Like its predecessor, the new Daytona is a triple, but it takes a significant step down market, targeting buyers who might otherwise be tempted by bikes like the Yamaha YZF-R7 or Honda CBR650R. As such it adopts a more usable configuration than its immediate predecessors, with higher bars and a more passenger-friendly seat. Like the hugely successful 600cc four-cylinder Japanese sportbikes of the 1980s and ‘90s, the new generation of Daytona is clearly designed to be an all-rounder rather than a track-focused, high-performance weapon.

The underpinnings clearly come straight from the Triumph Trident and Tiger Sport, with a simple steel frame wrapped around Triumph’s 660cc triple, which makes 81 hp in those models. In terms of performance, that will position it between the 72 hp Yamaha YZF-R7 and the 94 hp Honda CBR650R if it carries the same state of tune as the other Triumph 660 models.

The new Daytona 660 will also borrow components from the Street Triple 765. (Triumph/)

While the main chassis and even the rear bodywork all come from the Trident, the fork, wheels and brakes are borrowed from the Street Triple 765. That could be an indicator that the engine has more performance than the Trident or simply reflect the fact that the Daytona is more likely to be ridden hard than the roadster it’s based on. Triumph hasn’t opted to give the bike as extreme a riding position as the Yamaha R7, even if that will be its closest rival. Where Yamaha has gone down the full-on sportbike route, with low-mounted clip-on bars, the Daytona’s appear to be higher and wider, more like the CBR650R’s.

The headlight is borrowed straight off the Tiger Sport 660. (Bernhard M. Höhne/bmh-images/)

Even the most notably different part of the Daytona 660, its front fairing, isn’t entirely new. The headlights—a notoriously expensive component to tool up—appear to be borrowed directly from the Tiger Sport 660, not only slashing costs for Triumph but helping give a family “face” across the range. The fuel tank is new, however, with indentations on its shoulders to make space for the lower-mounted bars, and the side panels and nose plastic are also unique to the Daytona 660, albeit with some nods to the old Daytona 675 in their shapes.

When it comes to weight, the current Trident comes in at 417 pounds, within a whisker of the R7′s 414 pounds, and while the Daytona 660′s bodywork will add a bit more mass it’s also clearly going to be in the same ballpark. That means we can expect it to be substantially lighter than the CBR650R’s 445 pounds. Despite the addition of an aerodynamic fairing, Triumph’s testbikes appear to use the same rear sprocket as the Trident, indicating similar, short gearing to prioritize acceleration over top speed, ensuring the bike feels quicker than its raw power figure might suggest.

Triumph is already known to be working on a more extreme off-road model based around the 660 engine, likely to be called the Tiger 660 or Tiger 660 Rally, and along with the Trident roadster, Tiger Sport 660 sport-tourer, and the new Daytona 660, the company will have a middleweight range that closely mirrors Yamaha’s MT-07, Tracer 7, YZF-R7, and Ténéré 700 lineup, competing with those models in each category. With the advantage of a characterful three-cylinder engine offering more power than their rivals the Triumph models will make a compelling case for themselves across the board.

View the full article