Triumph continues to push outside the boundaries it’s played in the past few years, with footage of a new half-faired sportbike prototype. It’s called the Speed Triple 1200 RR.

The footage uploaded to Triumph’s official YouTube channel shows an “RR design prototype … the first exciting glimpse at a new statement in Speed Triple beauty, crafted sophistication and focused performance to come.” Unpacking the MarketSpeak from that blurb, we see a different take on the usual Speed Triple formula. Instead of an aggressive hypernaked, we see a kinda-sorta superbike.

This machine is not what Triumph has been building for the past few years. For a long time now, Triumph has restricted its sportbikes to the 765-series, without any machines in the litrebike class. Currently, Triumph’s only sportbike is the Daytona Moto2 765, with a three-cylinder design based off the bikes Triumph builds for the Moto2 championship.

But, it does match up with a long-established pattern in some other ways. Ever since Hinkley got the Triumph name back into the mainstream, it’s built bikes that coloured outside the existing lines. When everyone else was building four-cylinders, Triumph built triples (and this bike will use a three-cylinder engine as well!). When everyone else was building 600s and 1000s, Triumph had the 675, the 955 … you get the idea.

With that in mind, it shall be most interesting to see where Triumph takes this 1200. With this half-fairing, will it serve as a spec bike in another series, or just a limited-edition playtoy for playboys? The second option seems more likely, as that’s where the Euro OEMs have taken their halo products in recent years. No doubt more shall be revealed on this fall’s show circuit …

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