Triumph Daytona 660 preview - the famous name returns for 2024

The Triumph Daytona 660 is here to take on the repositioned supersport sector, where screaming inline four-cylinder track weapons are out, and more road-focused user-friendly machines are in.

This means the new Daytona is shaping up to compete against bikes like the Yamaha R7, Honda CBR650R, Aprilia RS660, and Kawasaki Ninja 650. Each is a road-focused sports bike first and foremost, although the Triumph has something none of the current bikes do, an inline three-cylinder engine.

What’s new?

The bike that you can see before you is closely related to two other bikes in the Triumph range: the Trident 660 and the Tiger Sport 660. The basic engine block and casings are the same as both those models, although the rest of the bike has more in common with the Trident 660 than the Tiger Sport 660. It does though have a significant number of changes when compared to the Trident, with the chassis, engine, and electronics differing in some way from its naked sibling.

The engine is one area that has seen a number of changes over the Trident, with the new Daytona featuring three individual throttle bodies, not the single item found on the naked. Dig a little deeper into the engine and you’ll find larger exhaust valves, a new valvetrain with higher lift cams, new pistons, a new combustion chamber, and a new crank. 

The result of all these changes is an engine that produces 93bhp and 51lb ft of torque, with 80 per cent of that torque available from above 3,000rpm - for reference the Trident 660 gets 80bhp and 47 lb-ft of peak torque. It’s engine characteristics like this that tip this as a road-biased sports bike, not an out-and-out track-ready machine like the Yamaha R6 or the reborn Honda CBR600RR. The gearbox of the new bike has also been updated, with slightly longer ratios and a taller final drive appearing on the Daytona.

The chassis is revised, and we can find 41mm Showa Separate Function Big-Piston forks at the front, and a Showa Balance Free rear shock, both of which are tuned for road riding and non-adjustable - aside from a remote pre-load adjuster on the rear shock. Suspension travel at the front is 110mm and 130mm at the rear.

The geometry of the bike is also new, with Triumph giving the new Daytona 660 a steeper rake, less trail, and placing more of the rider’s weight over the front end of the bike. Overall the Daytona is slightly longer than the Trident 660, with a wheelbase of 1425.6mm, a rake of 23.8 degrees and trail of 82.3mm. The frame has been altered slightly to make room for the new trio of throttle bodies.

Braking on the bike is taken care of by four-pot radially-mounted calipers at the front which act upon 310mm floating discs and a two-piston sliding caliper with a 210mm disc at the rear. The brakes are Triumph branded and developed by “a leading braking manufacturer” for the bike, although when asked, Triumph declined to say which particular firm. The ABS on the bike is a standard two-channel system, meaning no fancy IMU control for either the ABS or traction control.

The riding position of the Daytona 660 has been described as not as extreme as is found on the Yamaha R7, but not as relaxed as on the Kawasaki Ninja 650. The clip-on bars are mounted above the top yoke, while the footpegs are higher up and further back than they are on the Trident 660. Having sat on the new bike I can tell you it is markedly more extreme than the Trident it shares many of its parts with, but it didn’t feel so cramped that I couldn’t imagine covering 150 miles or so on it. The launch of this bike is happening in March, so check back on this page for the full review to tell you how we got on.

On the technology side, the new Daytona 660 has a smattering of systems as standard and a couple that can be added as optional extras. As standard, the bike gets three riding modes, Rain, Road and Sport. Each features a bespoke throttle map and traction control intervention level. Should the rider want to, the traction control system can also be turned off via the menus within the hybrid TFT/LCD dash - as also found on the Trident 660 and Tiger Sport 660.

Triumph Daytona 660 UK price, colours and availability

The new Daytona will be landing in UK dealerships from March 2024 onwards, and interested parties can speak to their nearest Triumph dealership from now on to place a deposit.

It’ll be available in three colours: Carnival Red, Satin Granite (grey), and Snowdonia White. Pricing will start from £8,595 and a full range of accessories will be available from the day the bike arrives.

That list price means the new Daytona undercuts the Yamaha R7, Aprilia RS660 and Honda CBR650R (although only by a fraction on the latter front). The only other model that falls into this new category of super sports bikes that costs less than the Triumph is the much more relaxed (and not as highly specced) Kawasaki Ninja 650.

The Triumph Daytona 660 finished in Carnival Red​

Triumph Daytona 660 specification

ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION

CHASSIS