Talk:Triumph T140W TSS

Special Category for British Motorcycles

As part of the Motorcycling WikProject I am working though all the missing articles and stubs for British Bikes. To make things easier to sort out there is a special Category:British motorcycles Please add to any British motorcycle pages you find or create. It will also help to keep things organised if you use the Template:Infobox Motorcycle or add it where it is missing. I've linked the Category to the Commons Motorcycles of Britain so you could help with matching pics to articles or adding the missing images to the Commons. Thanks Tony (talk) 06:32, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Please disregard the above notice and others like it. See Wikipedia:Categorization for the actual guidelines on how to categorize articles. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Dubious claim of first production date

It is stated that the first T140W TSS was produced on the 27th October 1981 for the North American market according to the Factory Records. However there is no indication that T140Ws were being produced that early in those very records. There is an initial date for USA TSS machines of the 27th October 1982. Indeed it seems that the first two TSS machines were 10th February 1982 and were experimental models. It would be good for someone else to check the Factory Records and verify this.— Preceding unsigned comment added by WyrmUK (talk • contribs) 17:32, July 26, 2021 (UTC)

It should have been removed long ago; it was tagged way back in 2011. The Triumph brand gets a disproportionate amount of coverage in mainstream sources relative to their actual sales, due to historical and cultural significance (which seems appropriate, IMHO). If, in spite of that, mainstream sources aren't interested in whether the TSS was produced on October 27th or October 26th or whether it rained that day or not, in 81 or 82 or whatever, then we have no reason to be concerned either. The lag between when a vehicle model went into production and when it went on sale in a given market, and whether or not that matches the official model year, has been a subject far too much drama, Administrators Noticeboard fights, topic bans, interaction bans, you name it. We only need to get the date right within 1 year, give or take, since an encyclopedia is not a collector's guide. If mainstream sources aren't any more precise than that, we don't need to be either, per Due weight. Digging into primary sources like factory records is a huge red flag that we're outside the bounds of due weight. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:43, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough (it wasn't my place to remove it myself). It's not like it was a model of any massive significance. To add to the production start date woes is the fact that the engine was usually built a day or so before so do you take that, or the frame build, or the assembly date, or whatever? Some mainstream sources go into the same level of detail but they apparently derive from the same singular mistake of reading 82 as 81 and the authors didn't go to the actual records themselves. Best to stay out of that and let a specialist source give a more informed opinion. WyrmUK (talk) 12:37, July 27, 2021 (UTC)