I can't drive a car but I love the look of a Jaguar. I can't swim but I've whitewater rafted and navigated a speed boat through black waters. That's just the sort of hairpin I am. I can't maneuver a motorcycle but damn it, I love the look of them.

The whole thunder-hog thing became real for me as a kid, seeing Steve McQueen on the big screen in The Great Escape. There, in Technicolor and Cinemascope, was America's Icon of Cool, spinning his wheels over a Bavarian hill trying to outrun/fly/speed the Nazis. Maybe that's Sound Of Music. I don't remember a motorcycle being the thing alive in those hills, but memory's imperfect.

Triumph has been around for 100 years now, making the same British standard motorcycle it did in 1902. In 2002, guys like Bill Shelton and Mark "Buzz" Brzozowski are selling them -- in brighter colors and with bolder displays -- in neatly appointed stores. Like their new sexy showroom and garage in Manayunk.

How were we able, at first, to differentiate this garage from any other in Manayunk? First, we spied tons of guys strolling out front with mustaches, tight jeans, band-collar/round shoulder moto-guzzi jackets and knee pads.

But this garage is textured beyond its rows of black poly-helmets and leather gear. The Triumph shop is long from back to front and side to side with low ceilings. While one long window allows you to gaze inside at focused moto-enthusiasts, architectural freaks can stare at the textural copper and silver walls out front; oddly accented with cobalt blue and the famous Triumph lettering done up in neon. Once inside, men on cell phones with German accents (still looking for McQueen?) mingle beneath the blaringly bright white lights. All the better to behold the triumph of Triumphs: vintage twin exhaust Thunderbirds, muscle-y vertical-twin powered Bonnevilles (like the red and silver centennial edition T100), the monstrous Tiger touring bike (very Alien) or Triumph's new sport motorcycles -- the Sprint, the TT600, the Daytona -- that imposingly fill their part of the showroom with their space-age design and hefty feel.

I can't drive a Triumph. But I like sniffing the smell of victory. Oh, and then there are the jackets.