The fire was devastating. As more than 100 firefight-ers battled through he night in an unsuccessful bid to save it, the 650 worke-rs at Triumph Motorcycles feared their futures, as well as the factory, would be left in ruins.

Dawn revealed that only the parts stores and accessories area had survived at the Hinckley plant in Leicester-hire where John Bloor, the publicity-shy Midlands prope-rty entrepreneur, had already once rescued the proud old British motorcycle maker from oblivion.

Would he have the will or inclination to make the Phoenix rise again? The fire was in March last year. By September product-ion was up and running once more in a new building with new plant and equip-ment.

Triumph was, and remains, back on track to continue one of the more remarkable revivals in Briti-sh industrial history. With output this year back to the pre-fire level of 30,000 glittering, high-powered machines a year, each selling for between £6,000 and £12,000, Triumph has already risen far above a welter of other schemes to revive once-revered British biking names such as Norton. But he fire was the catalyst for Mr. Bloor to take a fresh look at Triumph's goals and ambitions.

The result, says Tue Mant-oni, Triumph's commercial director, has been an expan-sion plan designed to make Triumph an even more serio-us challenger in the Japanese-dominated motorcycle industry. "I will be disappointed if we do not increase sales by 25 per cent a year over the next five years," says Mr. Mantoni. In other words, by he end of 2008 Triumph should be making 80,000 machines a year - more than at any time in its more than century-long history.

Mr. Mantoni himself is at Triumph as a result of Mr. Bloor's fresh look at the business. Having run it almost single-handedly since he bought the rights to Triumph in 1983, he decided to bring in external expertise.

Mr. Mantoni was part of a McKinsey consultancy team moved in after the fire to review strategy and establish how to take the business forward. He liked it so much hat he stayed.

Until then, Mr. Bloor had concentrated mainly on Triumph's engineering and design. Other issues, such as marketing and dealer development, had taken a backseat. "So we looked at everything downstream," says Mr. Mantoni. What should Triumph's brand mean in the future? Who exactly was Triumph selling to? Were the models right for the job? What should be done about the dealer network?

Mr. Bloor, Mr. Mantoni and John Easton, a second director, felt customers might have the answer to what the brand should be. So 1,200 customers, in all big markets, were telephoned for their views in half-hour interviews. "The overall view was that here was very strong support for Triumph out there but we needed, as a company, to be more relevant and up to date and communicate better."

The interviews also con-firmed that one of the most important aspects of the brand was heritage. "That's important. No one can take t from us and the Japanese do not have it. We want to make sure we hold on to it," says Mr. Mantoni.

It was a heritage that had narrowly escaped oblivion. having originated in a bicyc-le factory opened by Siefried Bettman and Maurice Schulte in a Coventry back street in 1889, Triumph enjoyed its glory years after he second world war.

Production reached a peak of 50,000 units in 1969 and the company basked in the limelight as its legendary Bonnevilles and Thunderbirds were sped around by screen icons such as Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen and, most notably, Marion Brando in his role as the anti-hero in The Wild One. Basked too much, in fact. In possibly the most vivid example of a world-leading UK industry hitting the wall. Triumph, BSA, Norton, Ariel Royal Enfield and others allowed arrogance and complacency to set in.

Investment fell away and haughtily dismissed Japa-nese rivals began to make inroads into the market. By 1975 the UK's share of the world motorcycle market had toppled from two-thirds at its peak to one-eighth and would soon all but vanish. Triumph collapsed and the Labour government set up an ill-fated co-operative with a £4m loan to resurrect it.

The co-operative's own col-lapse led to a small-scale revival at a site in Devon. That was the company that Mr. Bloor bought. Within four years the venture was firing on all cylinders at its new home in Hinckley Since then well over 200,000 machines have been built.

The bikes coming off the line today reflect Triumph's heritage but have also been designed to allow the com-pany to avoid head-on confrontation with the core products of Japanese manu-facturers such as Honda Suzuki and Kawasaki.

Nevertheless, the styling of more recent machines and the attention given to the cheaper end of the range are aimed at attracting younger riders. 'If we want to attract a new and younger audience we have got to con-vince them that Triumph is building cool and sexy bikes; Triumph has possibly forgotten that in the past," says Mr. Mantoni.

Fires apart, the formula to date has undeniably been successful. Triumph sells in most world markets through its network of 700 dealers 25-30 per cent of its revenues come from North America, 25 per cent from the UK and the rest from continental Europe and Asia. About 5 per cent of production, or about 1,500 machines a year, is sold in Japan.

Until now, Triumph has concentrated simply on having enough dealers. "But from here on in there will be a lot more focus on the dealers," says Mr. Mantoni. This will involve upgrading show-rooms and putting more emphasis on lucrative after-market sales of items such as clothing.

Triumph believes that the US, in particular, is once again ripe for growth via machines such as the Rocket III, a recently launched super-cruiser whose 2.3 litre engine - the biggest of any motorcycle - is intended to put even US rival Harley-Davidson's most powerful "hogs" on the defensive.

There is plenty of room for growth. Triumph's share of the US motorcycle market is just 1 per cent, "mainly because brand awareness is low", admits Mr Mantoni. There is a mountain to climb in the US but few expected Triumph to avoid being flattened by the Japanese Goliath when Mr Bloor invested his initial £50m or so to get the venture into production. Industrial logic says that economies of scale count when a company's output is too great for it to be regarded as a maker of hand-built works of art.

Yet Triumph spreads its overheads across a production volume less than a tenth of its heavyweight rivals' - Logic says its should also struggle to match the Japanese for design and engineering. But starting out with new models and a new factory allowed Mr Bloor and his colleagues to capitalise on the 1980s advances in computer-aided design, engi-neering and manufacturing.

The new management structure is also seen as a crucial weapon. "We run a very lean management team at Hinckley, controlling a network of regional offices which are focused entirely on the sales frontline," says Mr Mantoni. He and Mr Eas-ton appear to be de facto joint managing directors, with Mr Bloor spending about half the week at Hinckley. There are few other management levels between the duo and the fac-tory floor.

But investment and man-agement skill are only part of the Triumph story. Even those who work there acknowledge the turnaround would have been impossible as a listed company. "Instead, thank heavens, John has been able to take the long-term view. It could never have happened with shareholders on his back," says one.