I am sure the idea was to maintain the look of the Hinkley “Modern Classics” which have CV carbs rather than go even more retro to the Meridian T-120. I am not a Triumph historian by any stretch of the imagination so don’t quote me on this.. but when John Bloor resurrected the Bonneville in 2001 didn’t they always use CV carbs?
I know there are folks who are crazy passionate about the T-120 and may have liked to have seen that, but I can understand the logic of wanting to maintain the consistency of the Hinkley line, particularly since the Amal didn’t seem to have the best of reputations. I am no expert on carbs by any stretch either, but from owners of Merdian bikes, I garner that there were many issues with construction quality and the like with the Amal Mk I.
I recall reading a review of the Kawasaki W650 awhile ago as I always like the looks of those as well. The review mentioned that perhaps the Kawasaki was working harder to make the W650 look like a ’69 Bonnie than the Triumph Hinkley models. But even that review applauded Kawasaki for not having the “dreaded Amal carburetor” and instead using CV carbs.
From Triumph’s standpoint of EFI in general are better fuel economy, automatic mixture adjustment, better performance, longer engine life.
I am sure that is all true, to what degree I don’t know. The better performance claim sounds like some of the computer overlockers who go on about 10% improvements in performance as though the average user would ever recognize that without benchmarking tools.
Maybe if you are the type of rider who really rings the snot out of every last ounce of performance you might notice. I am guessing for the average rider (like myself) , the performance difference is trivial.
In any case, I don’t have an EFI bike, so what they decided to hide the EFI unit in isn’t of much concern to me .. at least not until I decide to buy something else