Standing in a near empty combination international shipping warehouse and sprint car shop in Carson, California, with a small group of friends and motorcycle builders dropping off bikes that have been invited to attend the Mooneyes HRC Show in Japan, a ’48 Chevy Deluxe panel truck backs in and is about to unload one of the coolest custom pre-unit Triumph motorcycles built in a long time. Once the back doors of the Chevy were opened it was like the needle was bumped and scratched across the record and everyone turned and looked as a tumbleweed rolled through and mouths went agape, mouths of some pretty well-renowned craftsmen.
Mark Drews built this 1957 Triumph in his upstairs living room above a tiny one-car garage with his own two hands and little help. He selected and sought out the parts, designed, fabbed, bodyworked, painted, carved, and polished every bit on this diminished two-wheeled show machine that looks like it could have taken home trophies made of wood and brass in some Autorama show in, say, ’66. Back when there wasn’t much record of custom motorcycles albeit random show coverage in Cycle World magazine.
Some might say what good does a full-show custom Triumph serve? Well, when the only car you have is a pre-war custom ’40 Ford coupe, and you ride an old Panhead chopper daily, with a Pan-Shovel, and two more pre-unit Triumph choppers crammed in the aforementioned garage, you can put all your far-out maybe not so practical ideas into one bike. But Mark isn’t one to have anything that doesn’t get used, so the one thing he looked for help on was the engine. Friend and local L.A. area Triumph nut and nice guy, Dan Druff of Franz and Grubb, went through the top end on Mark’s now-stout T110. It has high-compression pistons, big valves, a BTH waterproof magneto, and chrome Amal Monoblocks (which were full of trouble!) all hooked to a ’53 trans that turns the big 4.00-19 Dunlop tire with hand-carved edges. The rocker boxes are shaved, and the pipes built out of smaller-diameter tubing for better proportions. Mark also made the oil tank out of raw materials and some stock Triumph pieces.