The last forty years have been a whirlwind for Triumph, from dead broke in the early ’80s, to over a billion dollars in revenue for 2024. Crucial to the British bounce back was the success of the Speed Triple, the three-cylinder naked with its unmistakable twin headlights, which gave the manufacturer a genuine performance bike from the beginning of their revival. But when they refer to it as “the ultimate sports bike for the road”, you know the marketing department is on the pull. But builder extraordinaire Jody Millhouse saw the potential to make those lofty dreams a reality, when he spied the half-faired Speed Triple RR. And holding absolutely nothing back, he and his team at Thornton Hundred have built the ultimate hooligan machine, a supercharged sledgehammer for the street.

When you enter a class that contains the Ducati Panigale V4, the BMW M1000RR and all of the best superbikes from Japan, claiming to be the ultimate is a statement that you better be able to back up. And while the stock RR is a brilliant machine and one of the best-looking modern bikes Triumph has ever produced, it simply can’t hold a candle to its classmates. Shedding a good 30kg and gaining 30hp at the crank would have got it there, but those are big leaps when you’re already pushing the limits of what you’ve ever achieved as a company. Enter Jody Millhouse, he doesn’t just take a good Triumph and make it better, he smashes through the glass ceiling of what others thought was possible, and delivers in tyre-shredding style.

How else can you explain this 400hp, supercharged, Speed Triple RR Drift bike! A machine which put on an epic display at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, spinning the rear tyre all the way up the famous hill climb. And now, one very lucky person can truly own the ultimate sport bike for the road, as Thornton Hundred has the RR for sale, street legal and MOT compliant. All of TH’s fully built bike comes with a 24-month, unlimited-mile warranty. And the Triumph is offered for sale registered for the road and with just 250 miles on the clock. So, what’s the price, well, it’s not cheap, but perfection never is, £55,000 will see you ride away, and you could never build a bike like this for that money.

Now, with all of that out of the way, let’s take a deep dive into what makes this epic beast such a special machine. Obviously, the big ticket item is the engine, and Jody and the team developed it all in-house at Thornton Hundred. From the factory, the1160cc, triple is a special bit of kit, but the 13.2:1 compression is way too high for forced induction. So, with a pen and some butchers paper, the boys crunched the numbers and ordered a new set of forged pistons and rods, with the new slugs dropping the compression down to a far more boost-friendly 10.8:1. Next was developing the supercharger system, which is based around the highly efficient Rotrex C30 supercharger and draws air via a K&N filter.

But it’s no bolt-on application, and the guys used their CAD skills and 3D printer to mock up the brackets, pulleys and even the new inlet tract and plenum. The lower pulley is beautifully cut to replicate the pattern of the wheels, while the full inlet is a multipiece item, that adds an extra three injectors to the party and also sports cooling fins at the top of the plenum. Further helping to keep the charge air cool is a water/methanol injection system and the whole package is controlled by a Link ECU and an ECUMaster power management unit. This allows the powerplant to be precisely tuned, and with multiple power modes, the bike puts out a more sensible 230bhp for the street.

The engine is also part of the weight-saving exercise, and the exhaust is a full titanium system which weighs just 2.4kg while spitting out an incredible sound. The bodywork is of course all carbon fibre and the kilos come flooding off, with the full front end, tailpiece, front fender and a host of other parts made from the lightweight material. The seat is one of the few factory components that remain and the stock inlet, which sits where a headlight would traditionally be placed, now rams cool air over the top of the intake, to further aid in the cooling of that mighty motor. Behind that front air ram, sits the ECUMaster dash and the fully customised unit allows control of many of the bike’s party pieces.

The first of which is the active aero, built into the front wings, with the central blade deploying upwards, to add an extra 24kg of weight over the front end under certain conditions. The system is actuated via the ECU and relies on inputs from the IMU as to the bike’s forward and backward acceleration, pitch, roll and yaw, as well as other customised inputs like the throttle percentage.

The rear end is then taken care of by that huge custom swingarm, 180mm over stock and with a price tag of £14,000. Once again, it was designed and 3D printed in-house before being machined, and the hollow unit stores the 5 litres of water and methanol for the injection system. Those glorious Rotobox wheels are all carbon fibre, and the weight-saving and drastically reduced unsprung mass is a priceless addition to performance.

To help better tune the bike, the active suspension has been ditched and it’s all manually adjustable Ohlins kit of the highest order. And when a bike can be switched to 400hp you need serious stopping power, so the Brembo calipers get titanium pistons, to match the ceramic pads and EBC wave pattern rotors.

A quickshifter allows you to blast through the gears and the bike even has small speakers, with an ECU-controlled voice, think muscular Siri, who gives you a rev-up when the bike starts, tells you off for putting it in limp mode and adds a host of fun. There are even tiny indicators in the heel guards of the rearsets, so officer, she’s legal. Supercharged, carbon, road legal and just 190kg with 230hp at the tyre in street spec. Thornton Hundred, take a bow.

[ Thornton Hundred ]