The TRUTH Behind TRIUMPHS TR7 Controversy - British Leyland's Worst Failure
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- In this video we cover one of the most debated topics regarding the british car industry and its decline the Triumph TR7 which some have called one of the worst sports cars ever made and declared one of the biggest British Leyland disasters sometimes being likened as BLs DeLorean DMC12.
The TR7 though isn't a bad car through Motorsport, sales success it proved itself against all odds to be a mainstay of British cars, we cover long forgotten stories from Speke and analyse the anatomy of what some have called a failure. Triumphs last sports car.
Just a note; not all was bad with British leyland and the British car industry isn’t dead it is very much alive. Regarding MG Rover and the many other eras I covered as much as I could in the small recap but longer videos will be produced covering these eras.
Follow me on Instagram for more cool stuff: / tomisdrivingcars
Credits:
AROnline - BL History, Triumph TR7 and TR8 information
Triumph TR7/TR8 CLUB - Historic rally information, TR7/TR8 information
Huw Beynon - Speke background and information
If you'd like to read more my sources are linked below
Huw Beynon - huwbeynon.com/
TR7/TR8 Club - tr7tr8.com/
AROnline - www.aronline.c...
OK I had two TR7s that I used as daily drivers. It seems to be fashionable to slag off the TR7, I assume mostly by people who never owned one. My first TR7 was a FHC in Pharoah gold It was written off when some pratt decided to drive straight into the back of it at high speed whilst I was turning right. I'd done lots of work on it and it had fully modified suspension. I purchased a silver drop head and purchased the write off and stripped the alloys and trick parts off. Then I got divorced and couldn't afford to keep the car and ended up with a mk2 1.6 Astra :-( I still have fond memories of the car. To this day for some reason about 30 years on I still have one alloy that lives in the shed as a silent monument.
It's nice you've got a monument to it, sounds like a fantastic car.
'trick parts'?
Chuckled at that one.
@@ramalama9650 Why?
@@tomdrives For the time it was. I upgraded from an MG Midget 1500 which of course was powered by a Triumph engine. I was let down on a V8 twice on a plan to convert the car. I also had most of the parts needed to convert the engine over to a Sprint 16v including a recondition head. They were stolen from my garage.
How about a film on "Mussolini's Revenge", the "Flying Rustbucket", the Lancia Beta?
Great video. I went with my dad to collect a new TR7 in 1978. White, green check seats and 5 speed. He went round the whole car checking bolts. Quite a few were loose. I still own it. Its won several concourse shows and has been at the NEC a few times. i love it. I also love the fact it still causes reactions good and bad. Also got a DHC. Great cars 👍
Brilliant memories and sounds amazing. Are you based in the UK? Or US?
I want to have your Babies....
By 1979 I had made anough money selling stick-insects at primary school to be able to walk into Moores of Rugby and pay cash for a brand-new works Rothmans TR7.
I caned it hard that summer and learned a lot about both my and my cars limitations. The TR7 remains my second favourite ride, the first being my yellow Mini-Cooper!
All these years later I miss two things... My hair and my Scalextric! 🇬🇧
Bad management and a work force happy to down tools at a drop of a hat. This reputation was the death noll of the domestic car industry.
Great video of the history of the TR7. Triumph made some great cars in its day.
Is that what killed the entire British Auto industry? The country that designed the Spitfire. I started working in US aerospace in 1983. We had a lot of British engineers. These poor guys were glad to have jobs and were “hand to mouth”. They wore clothing from the 1970’s. They were called GBs.
My old man had a yellow tr6. Sometimes, when you make a master piece it's hard to better.
So sad! So many legendary makes that effectively disappeared.
I think I remember reading that BL didn't want to build the Speke factory. They were forced by the government to do so to give jobs to an area with high unemployment.
Correct. They wanted to build it at Canley. Another upshot of Speke closing was the stillborn TR7 Sprint ( 16v) - About 60 were built , it was due to launch and BL closed Speke. When production finally restarted at Canley, the Sprint version was canned. And then was the TR7 based Coupe, the TR Lynx, it got binned too...
Same thing happened when government made Rootes group produce Hilman Imp in Lynwood near Glasgow. Same (sort of) result
Sounds very similar to what happened with the Rootes Group and the Linwood plant. If Macmillan had allowed Rootes to extend the Ryton factory, we just might still have Rootes in some form or other. Such a shame, the TR7 was a great looking car, but should have replaced the Spitfire, rather than the TR6. Just a thought.
@@WelshyMAfter Speke closed components that had been rejected/damaged on the production line were sent to Canley, where the workforce were told to build cars with them.
My Father bought my sister a TR7 that had been fitted with a Dolomite Sprint engine. Other than a timing chain mishap early on (that's how I learned all about grinding valves and shimming camshafts), it was a surprisingly quick and reliable car.
I owned a yellow TR7 that I bought used and loved the design and here in the US, it was a whole lot of fun to drive compared to the usual cars here in that time period. I did some SCCA Auto crossing with it too. Sad to say that it was the least reliable car I evened owned. There were spells where it broke down every week! There were grinder marks in the body that were never smoothed out before paint. Still have fond memories and built a scale model of it.
The styling was definitely ahead of its time and has aged well. Michelotti styled the drop head coupe version. I think he did a good job.
Apparently, as detailed in the book Triumph TR7 The Untold Story, DeLorean tried to buy the TR7 line from BL, the plan being that they would produce a mildly restyled version of the TR8 badged as a Healey, but that never came to pass.
I don't see this car as a beauty or timeless classic at all. All the TRs before were lookers, but this can be lumped with the other turnips BL put out in the 70's: Allegro, Princess, Marina, Maxi. It was like the management wanted the company to fail with their watered down production. I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall seeing original design drawings for the TR7 and the car was a looker. Like the proposed Allegro, the car had road presence - until it got neutered in production stage. To my mind, the wheel base is way too short on the TR7. It sat up high on the road and had a most un-roadsterish look about it - unlike the TR6 it replaced.
I've loved the TR7 ever since I set eyes on as a kid and had a diecast model of one. I think it looks amazing even now.
If I ever get the money, I'm buying one.
Still looks great. I wanted one then. I want one now. Harris Mann, I salute you.
I've owned at least one since 1980. I currently have 5.. 3 x TR7 and 2 x TR8. 1 from California, 1 from Vancouver and 3 from the UK.. 3 were built at Speke and 2 were built at Solihull... Great cars all of them.
TR7 brings back a bad memory. In 1978, my RSM had a Yellow one which broke down on his way back to our Barracks in Aldershot. Me and a Sgt had to drive up to a MW Services near Birmingham and tow it back in the Sgts Burger Van, (He was moonlighting), with a Hemp rope that kept snapping and getting shorter. The Battery on the TR7 was flat, no lights, no wipers, it was pissing down, dark, and i had to have my head out of the window to see, and we had to keep to country roads. Got back at 03:30. Back on duty at 08:00. Put me off them.
That’s the most British thing I’ve read in a while.
A disturbing lack of stiff upper lip wot
Hi Tom, another great informative video, another missed opportunity to produce a decent car, but it’s spooky as i watch this video as whist at work today one of my customers turnes up a x reg tr8 . Great work regards mark
My father turned a Herald into a mini modified speedway car so I was only a teen when the TRs were about.
Such a shame the whole industry went kaputski, they're a cool looking car. I went on to become an Auto Engineer but kinda missed the boat with TR's.
Cool video thank you :)
I owned 76 R dark red metallic TR7: in 1988) i drove it all over the country, without any problems) all i did was usual service & tyres and new shocks/brakes etc.i covered over 38,000 miles in it ) i sold it in 1990) to a friend who still owns it ) and has offered it back to me, but i currently own several classic car's already, which i want to scale down and just keep a few of my favourites, that I've owned for 30+years. ) thanks for the great video:
Nothing says more about about BL, than assembly workers driving into their factory in the Rootes/Chrysler, Fords, and Vauxhalls we see in that footage.
The film shows Speke No 2, not Canley. There was a pronounced quality difference between Speke and Canley - it was almost like the workers at Speke took pride in producing substandard vehicles.
I was a young lad of 11, when these came out and traveled in lots of brand new ones , My uncle was a delivery driver , car transporter , , from Coventry , delivering all over the uk , I can still remember the interiors, can’t remember much about sitting in the tr8 but I must have , after all was only 11 , also saw a lot of brand new rs200 that went to a work place nr me when I was around 21 , also the tickford capri , cheers shane uk 🇬🇧
In the 1970's TV series The Professionals it is well documented that Doyle drove a blue R reg TR7 in several episodes as BL were providing vehicles for the first part of series one including the Tumeric yellow Rover 3500 SD1 for Cowley and the white Dolly Sprint for Bodie. BL cocked up with the continuity plus reliability issues of the vehicles supplied. A massive missed opportunity. Ford stepped in as they knew the value in product placement after The Sweeney etc. The TR7 should have been a massive hit. It is funny to see how revered the RS2000 is now, no doubt helped by the product placement. The TR7 was also used in The New Avengers and a couple of episodes of Return of The Saint in period which should have boosted sales.
In the late 70s all the teachers in my primary school had a TR7, they would all be parked in the school car park like it was the NEC, I wanted one as a 6 year old and I still one one now.....
Sounds similar to my, junior school in the late 70's) four of my teachers owned them, 2 in yellow and 1 green) 1 in russet brown) I believe. I owned one myself year's later , that my friend still owns.
I have my car at a shared garage work space, my companion there is in the final stages of putting a Saab H 16V engine into a TR7, he originally wanted to do this swap to a Dolly, but couldn't find a sound bodied one with a bad engine.
So he basically making a TR7 Sprint (soft) Turbo.
Thankfully, Saab kept the orientation of the engine FR, although FWD, which makes the swap very simple.
That sounds amazing. I’d love to know more. Do u have pics/vid?
@davids2350
I'm gonna make one when it's finished, and he takes it out.
Bernd made tons of pics and a couple of videos. He strengthened the sills like they did in the rally cars, reinforced the turrets, etc. He wants to keep the option of going to a larger turbo and intercooler.
But we ain't RUclipsrs, family, job, and other commitments, we're both happy to get a couple of hours of work in let alone make a build video.
My YT channel has a video of a clean pull in a tunnel with my wife's E30 convertible after I rebuilt the top end. And a hot lap with my best mates Gulia GTAm around Alfas proving ground on a GTAm track day.
😆
I remember my next door neighbour coming home with a brand-new one with brown tartan seats and the bodywork was in a chocolatey almost baby shit brown but it looked fantastic and I remember being taken up the motorway in it with the top down . I personally absolutely loved it
I remember the day in 1976 when dad left his v8 sd1 at work and came home with a TR7 (and later a tr8) for a few weeks. It was a lovely car but not family practical. Dad was the Scottish dealer factory rep for about 12 years. Some of the company cars were nice (Rover etc) some, truly awful (maxi/allegro) etc. we did like a princess. Build quality for all was rubbish tho.
Took my first driving test on Triumph Dolamite and loved the gearbox on it and I always wondered what the TR7 was like too drive but never had the opportunity to try, then there was a serious wiring fault with a couple of TR7s catching fire behind the dashboard and the desirable car faded into medeocraty, such a shame for such a beautiful design.
I got 35 seconds into this video yesterday and jumped straight onto marketplace to see if there were any 7s for sale...........some terrifyingly frilly ones about.
20 years ago as tourist riding through Nevada we stop to eat. As we parked we were followed by several TR7's We went over to chat to owners. They were all on their way to Vegas for a Triumph meet. Seems the dry desert air suited all these pristine 7's.
Sounds amazing!
I had a TR7 and I loved it.
Stunning car that deserved to be more than it achieved. Incredibly strong bodyshell for the time hence why it was a great basis for motorsport versions. Still looks the part now.
With SAAB licensing the 1850 engine from Triumph and developing that into a very effective 2.0 injected, turbocharged 16v motor, it would have been interesting to see how that would have worked as an alternative to the V8.
Car manufacturing back then was a real problem in England 😢
Everything was a real problem in England back then. There was 320% inflation over the whole decade - a nightmare for any kind of forward planning.
2000 undocumented production changes? If undocumented, who counted?
"is there anything that could have been done differently" - basically everything.
It's like they wanted to fail, there's no sense to anything.
It's British management culture of the time sadly.
Speke was the final nail in the coffin.
I bought and restored one as a kid. loved the car. Hope to buy another one day.
I'd love one, amazing cars, poorly executed
@@tomdrives I owned a very used and rusty example and it was in the garage more than it was on the road. But fun to drive when it was working.
My first car was a TR7 i got it in 92 and i wasn't aware of itd history at the time. It was just a car i thought was cool as a kid and now had the chance to own. Now when i tell people about it most don't know what one is and when i show pictures of it the think wow that was your first car and how cool it was.
It think one of the mistakes BL made was calling it a TR7. It meant it could never stand on its own and would always be compared unfairly with other TRs.
I had an abused 1976 TR7 with a 4-speed gearbox back in the early 1990s. It was a wreck, so I won't use my experience as a measure of quality, but it was CRAAAAAAAAAP!!
Shame they didn't launch the Triumph TR7 Sprint, and fuel injection on the 2.0 litre version. It was the value of the pound at 2.40 dollars to the pound that killed all sports cars. The poison dwarf on Dallas drove a triton Green convertible in 1980, but it was all too late
I have my Fathers TR& Soft top, the last one ever made and today it has still only covered 6,000 miles !
I worked for a British Leyland dealership in Barnsley serving as an apprentice Was there for the launch of the TR7
Initially there was loads of interest and loads of orders took at launch
But unfortunately as quick as they went out they were back all with poor quality issues and it did a lot of damage to the brand and us as a dealership
Barnsley! Not far from me. Do you remember where it was?
@@tomdrives Yes of course it was Hatfield's on Wakefield road a Sheffield based company
My brother in law worked for kennings in Sheffield. @@peterlee44
In the U.K., it became Joanna Lumley's car as Purdey on THE NEW AVENGERS to the point that BL would not license any of her versions of the MGB (which she had not he show first) as a diecast, model kit or the like, so they could use here and the show to help launch the TR7. Ironically, the TR7 appeared in less episodes, but it did not hurt sales of the car one bit. Besides her yellow version, a red TR7 was feature din the last of the episodes shot in Canada. The show got dumped on U.S. TV in its first run at 12:40 AM by an obnoxious CBS, so too few people saw it at the time.
First car Bodie and Doyle step out of in the series The Professionals. Car also in Dallas tv series, driven by Victoria Principle. Also in Charlies Angels driven by Shelley Hack.
@@flybobbie1449 In the case off THE PROFESSIONAL CI-5, BL was still the car company behind the show when it debuted after being behind the entire run of THE NEW AVENGERS, but co-producer/co-creator Brian Clemens was so ticked off the first day when the BL cars started having instant failures, he got rid of every BL car on the show, cancelled them, signed with Ford instead and the Capri became iconic and THE car for Bodie and Doyle.
A cabriolet TR7/8 with bumpers painted in the same colour as the rest of the car. Lowered and with wider low-profile tires, wins in the most important category of everything: LOOKS!
I’m a big fan of the TR7 - especially the more sorted later cars, and the droptop. There’s been a series of essays on the TR7 on the excellent ‘Driven To Write’ car design blog site. The ‘7’, and Harris Mann (the TR7’s designer - and a very talented one in my opinion) have taken a lot of flack - not totally justified. The TR7 was a great design in my view, saddled with a duff gearbox at the start, an odd stance, which was eventually fixed, and nowhere near enough power. I still don’t understand why the TR7 didn’t get the Dolly Sprint engine from the start - it’s not as though the 2 cars were in competition. The use of a weak gearbox in the beginning didn’t help reliability, and the initial build quality was poor. BL should have also made the car a T-bar at the very least rather than a fixed head coupe. The later droptop was (in my view anyway) stunning - and a car I came close to buying once. I’m not so fussed about the TR8 - I bet they’re superb to drive, and sound wonderful - but a sweet, high revving 16v engine would have suited the modern looks better. Yet another BL ‘if only’ - but, still in my view a great looking car, with a superb interior. Sad that this was the last true Triumph - one brand that shouldn’t have been retired - I still think there was room for at least one sporting saloon Triumph car in the ARG range, to take on BMW, leaving Rover to tackle their traditional market. They could have even turbocharged the slant 4 engine, to make a quasi SAAB……
Drive To Write is an excellent website.
It is sad, I agree with your points there were a lot of things ie the sprint engine that could have changed the game but it wasn't to be, so much stacked up against it.
I still have my TR7 drophead, currently on 74.5K miles all original, never welded at all and recently have done the Bicester scramble twice this year driving from Plymouth, Devon. The 'slant' 4 engine used the same block as Saab had used on the 900 back in the day! A good power unit. Like any engine, look after it & it will look after you!
is it a metallic blue V reg?
@@lucythemoggy1970 No a silvery-gold W reg (Oct '80)
@@ChrisFEJackson oh i might have to look out for it! ( i live in plymouth )
@@lucythemoggy1970 I'l be driving it less now as the winter approaches, unfortunately. Cars & Coffee 2nd Nov at Morwelham Quay (10-4pm) if you are interested.
All ways wanted a tr7😊😊😊😊❤❤❤
Right. Let's forgets the stupid pub talk clichés, the TR7 was the best selling of all TRs, I have had these, amongst many other older cars, since 1997. Mine have been brilliant, it's a vastly underrated, balanced and economic sports coupe. Yes they rusted,,an awful lot of cars did back then. Yes there are ere production and design faults, like so many cars back then. But it is a lovely car, ignore what the twit down the pub tells you and try one. The TR6-4-5 and MGB is nowhere near ascnice a drive, and the soft top is far easier to use and more waterproof.
I was walking around when they were new I’ve had capris cortina’s , Datsuns, Roveras , Cavaliers , I’d have a TR7 today!
Funnily enough, I am not a fan of convertibles, but the TR7 is the exception. Definitely would like a V8 one
I liked it. I was about to buy one; I didn't do it because of the lack of power
Are you based in the US?
TR8?...
@@tomdrives Italia.
At the time I had also considered a used MGB, in the end I bought an Alfa GT. I liked English cars, for their personality. My uncle had an Innocenti IM3 which he always praised.
I was sorry to witness the slow debacle, culminating in the ignoble BMW/Rover affair
I fixed a few, not bad cars really, just badly put together. the fuel cap was in a recess that had a drain hole that blocked up and then everytime it rained you'd get a bit of water in the tank. My mate had this problem and the only fix was to drill a hole in the tank, drain it and put a self tapper with a washer in the hole. There was no proper drain on the tank probably to save money.
Yeah. My opinions on BL are pretty bloody shocking so lets just say this: it wasn't the car's fault. Faired better than the RX7 and X1/9 of the time, the 5 speed from the SD1 transformed it from that ratty, little Marina gearbox, just so they could hit 60 without changing into 3rd. Road and Track called the TR8 Car of the Year in 1980. Would've liked to have seen the Dolly Sprint engine in there in its lifetime. It got so close that I believe there are a number of pre-production examples around.
Good car - bad company. Story of its life...
I bought a yellow TR7 new and loved. 🇦🇺
In the late 80’s I was Autoxing an ‘80 MGB in SCCA.
A competitor in class was a fella with a TR7.
I regularly beat him soundly.
He complained that he should be winning… the TR7 had a modern suspension and engine!!!😂
To be fair, I was using the Sebring suspension setup🎉
Thanks a lot, Tom, that was very interesting and professional.
What a story of mismanagement and bloody-mindedness!
In the early 1970s I owned a Frog-eye Sprite and then an MGB, but I would never have considered a TR7: they sit too high and even then I thought they were ugly.
As an 8 year old I sat in Tony Ponds championship TR7 and met his co driver. So many switches to play with, I was in it just pretending for an hour. Happy days,
A friend of mine had always been a BMC/BL car buyer and fiercely patriotic, one time when he was passing the local BL dealership in Oldham, he spotted a car transporter unloading the then new and unannounced Austin Princess wedge. He stopped asked the driver what the car was and was told, "sorry I am not allowed to let anyone see it" So he went inside, found the sales manager whom he knew and asked to see this new car pointing out that he had been a very good customer. All right said sales manager come round into the back workshop and see it. After having a good look he asked to see under the bonnet (hood in USA) only to find a piece of cardboard perched on the engine with a hand written message "do not buy this piece of ******" . My friend left the salesman somewhat embarrassed and of course did not buy one.
Living up to the TR6 and GT6, it was quite an impressive little car
As an oldie I can remember well the shock & laughter that followed the release of the TR7. When I was a teenager in the late 60s the TR5 & TR6 were seen as really cool aspirational cars. I remember a friend being left money by a distant aunt and him buying a TR5 with a Surrey Top. Wow were we jealous. The TR7 was however never seen as cool and just bought by aging men who thought it would attract "dolly birds". An updated TR6 with perhaps a 3 litre straight six would have been the ideal TR7.
I was a kid in the seventies and to us the TR7 was cool. At the time we weren't even aware there had been any other TRs before it. Cars like the TR6 and MGB just seemed old-fashioned and out of date. The 7 was a cool poster car with it's pop-up lights and wedge shape.
Your comment reaffirms my belief the one of the things BL got wrong was calling it a TR7. It was and should have been seen as something different for a different audience to the 6. I don't think it did it's self or previous TRs any favours being called that. Having said that the fact that it was the biggest selling TR suggest it was seen as cool by more people at the time than the 6. And I don't mean any disrespect to any of the TRs with any of my comments I think they are all great cars in there own way.
Its a shame but the TR7 never looked like a serious sibling for all those past TR brands, They were elegant, drop dead gorgeous to look at while the TR7 looked like a wedge of cheese, Obviously with all BL cars the quality was awful and to think after it the Triumph brand was sullied, All that heritage that had gone before was ignored and it became a laughing stock, Soundly put to sleep by the horrible Triumph Acclaim. Another really good video Tom.
Good memories of my two TR7's, both drop tops, the first was a gold scrapper and one which was a V8 conversion in BRG with the nice alloys. Le Mans and back in the 90's was a piece of cake and it never missed a beat in the years I had it. (Even when I put a couple of gallons of diesel in, instead of petrol - it just took it in its stride.)
They were great cars. And the troubles add to their charm. Who wants a mazda mx5.
Me!
Great video 👍 Another example of politics and business destroying a possible bread and butter earner for BL.
I think now days it looks great 👍
I do too, it was ahead of its time.
I worked in the motor industry in the mid/late 70s for HR Owen and regularly drove TR7s and found them good cars when new. The problem was with the dealerships who didn’t PDI them properly and when servicing were not to the standard of German car dealers.
I looked at one when it was three years old for my girlfriend but it was so rusty.
The TR7 had an obvious car as competition that was very similar looking, but fundamentally different: the FIAT X1/9. The FIAT had a transverse mounted four cylinder. I remember thinking that the TR7 was a cool looking car here in America, where I was little kid, but the FIAT X1/9 was much more common on the road here.
This is a very serious management v engineering case study
My father bought a TR8 as Leyland died. The 1st car I broke 130 mph while driving! I loved it. Now I have a '72 TR6 in my garage.
Sounds like great memories
I remember seeing these in the U.S., and I thought they were pretty cool. However, I ended up getting a Fiat X19 instead.
I remember the advertising for the convertible TR7 saying it had lots of headroom. 🤣
I loved the TR-7 but in Illinois the ones I saw were rusted horribly. I thought it looked terrific and handled well; and it was affordably priced. It was also launched during a recession which didn't help matters any and also CAFE regulations ruined all performance cars.
Don't know much about BL being here in the USA, but when I hear about it, there's just something exhausting about this company and how everything just went bad.
Great job and interesting of the car that could of one great tr cars good job Tom keep it up
Thanks, will do!
Good video documenting another chapter about the failures in the tragic story of BL.
Thanks James
Going to suck when you run out of B.L topics, but fortunately, you'll be able to do Stellantis next and from what I've seen you'll be able to just re-use your B.L scrips because they're currently doing exactly the same mistakes and miss management to the point it looks like someone watched a documentary titled "History of British leyland" and was so inspired they had to jump up and get to work and not watch the last 20 minutes 🤣
Ive had a 4speed Speke car, JPS Special 5speed Canley car and a drop top. 4speed split in half ,where the rear bulkhead meets the floor, just as I left the A4 for the West End. Garage reckoned it would need to be put on a jig to get it straight, with a bracing panel across the split and a new roof welded in to get rid of the twisted shell. Almost half the cost of the car to rebuild it, got the money back for that and bought the 5speed. Lovely car, chopped that in for the drop top. That was nice but suffered scuttle shake as the body wasn’t stiff enough.
Chopped that in reluctantly as I was doing a ton of motorway miles and it was hard going with the all over body massage from it. Brought a SD1 3500 auto in its place. Let’s just say that is another story altogether😂
There was a guy where I worked years ago that had bought himself a brand new TR 7 , it spent more time at the dealership than it did in his driveway . Eventually it was sent back to England for repairs under warranty , but the owner had to pay for the shipping ! The car never was right , and was sold to someone else .
I was a young adult in the USA in the 1970s. By that time all the British cars were famous for poor reliability, especially the electronics.
In 1989 my woodworking teacher traded me a 1988 Chevy S10 for my pristine 1976 Triumph TR7.
Another great production Tom, don’t forget to check out The Strange Rover while we are on the TR7 lol
Alvin Smith, what a legend!
i remember those when i was going to college , they were sort of popular with the wanna-be yuppie crowd. i saw one tr7 that had been v-8 swapped with a 351. its a shame they didn't come with a strong diff and IRS. wouldn't the cosworth 2l from the cos vega been a great fit for it.?
It was a car that everyone wanted to like, but the quality was awful and by the time they got to the US, they were very underpowered and quite flat in performance. They did have their following though. A friend of mine in HS had a few of them and also had a TR6. I believe he's still got them, as well as his dad and brother, but I haven't seen him in a number of years.
Parts could be a bit difficult to get when BL shut the lights out, but not impossible. You had to know where to get them and I had a local auto parts store that could get whatever was needed when one rolled into my neighbor's shop. Plus, once the internet became the place to go to get parts, you can find what you need now. Where BL left off, others have picked up and you can get what you need.
Unfortunately, the "shape of things to come" was flat. BL's finances went that way, and a lot of them became appliances (got recycled) by owners who gave up on them.
It wasn't just management, in the 1970s stupidity was rampant in the British automobile industry from the very top to the very bottom. I liked British sport cars but they were horrifically unreliable and built so badly they made the Lada look like a Mercedes. A pity, had they made even half an effort they would be going strong instead of gone. They had the right formula the Miata's spectacular success proves that but they sat down and soiled themselves when it came time to deliver.
British Leyland management, in the late 1960s to late 1980s was truly horrendous! The management had no time for their workforce and, as reported and due to their total incompetence in planning, testing and manufacturing logistics, created the most awful circumstances for production. Donald Stokes said he didn't care what the UK public said they wanted, for cars, his attitude was that they should buy the designs/cars that tgey made. It is no wonder that the workforce and, more importantly, the buying public rebelled. It was dreadful and arrogant management that condemned the whole BL combine to a painful death.
well done
Wow Tom! ( is that you in the thumbnail?) 😊
It's an old marketing shot, it's a good one, perfectly encapsulated the TR mystique. The Spanish one, now that's a bit much...
I think making anything for the US market at the exclusion of all else is shortsighted, especially something so quintessentially British. Whoever thought that was a good idea should have been sacked on the spot!
Interesting 2 seater saloon, with Ford Anglia vibes.
Is it the notchback rear window that did put a few people off?
The Phone Order Problem is a classical case of a minute Issue causing a devastating Effect.
You could say TR7 never had a chance of succeeding
When a well known company name/badge dissappears or goes bust, all it takes is a new investor a few years down the line for a complete rebirth. so the saddest part of the whole BL fiasco wasnt what it did to the marques, but how it ruined particular models that couldve/shouldve been British all time greats! (Sd1,,tr7,,xjs)
I have only seen one in Jamaica.
I am old enough to remember when this came out and I thought it was hideous after the TR six. Just plain ugly. Like the Jensen Healy, it was just awkward looking to my eyes.
The TR7 became a bit of an embarrassment to BL when Ken Wood kept winning rally’s in his, when the car was out of production. This made BL dig the old Paris to Peking Rally built SD1 out of storage and give him that car to race as people kept asking when the TR7 would be back in stock!
The SD1 in question though had not been used as the rally was scrapped at the last minute and wasn’t raced regularly until Ken Wood had it, willing the Scottish Tally Championship in 1982 (he won in the TR7 a couple of times, the last one being in 1980)
Wasn't failure, i had one several years, nice car. Rot box and usual 70's car faults. Others my age when i mention it say they had one and liked it. It was a low volume sports car, like they all are.
I seem to remember these went on sale for £3333 to compete with Fiat X-19 at £3300.
They should have just made the TR8 that was one of the biggest mistakes
"Not looking like anything else on the road at the time?"
Well, I was around at the time ( YES I am that bloody old😆) and there was the Fiat X19 which looked very similar from the front, also it had a passing resemblance to Lotus's of the era .
Granted, most similarities were with the front end treatment .
Although the back end of the TR was hideous, it looked like the rear was the last part of the design process and whoever designed it lost the will to live
And got the Tea lady to finish it for him.
It’s ironic how the Pontiac Fiero repeated the same story and mistakes. It also could have been really great but the same politics and decisions doomed what could have been a great car
Looking at the current offerings it seems the TR7 remains rather unloved. Amongst the rather few available in the UK the best 36k mile example could be yours for 9 grand. You would need to stump up another 6 grand to bag the cheapest TR6 out there. As for the sales, it's difficult to make comparisons as, taking the average size of the USA market for cars over the lifespan of both vehicles it grew by nearly 25% so one would rather expect the TR7 to sell more than the TR6.
Lots of blame being fired in all directions here.
Just look for a moment at the vintage video of Number Two Factory at Speke Liverpool,
at 9:04 in this upload. That video was shot in colour and yet there is no colour to be seen.
Everything is various shades of grey, couple that fact with a mind destroying repetitive job
on a car production line and I tend not to blame the workforce.
As for financial incentive, they were building a product that they could never afford to buy
new for themselves.
TR6 was a stunning car. Wish I had been old enough to drive as that was on my list to buy. Now I'm 55 I can't afford one in mint condition - how does that work?
The Bullet at 3:25 looks very close to the contemporary Porsche 914....
I was about to post exactly the same comment. Surprisingly the Bullet was front-engined but visibly has almost the same proportions.
Beyond the poor engineering, poor workmanship, polarizing design, having to compromise to meet USA safety and pollution standards, several other factors hurt the sales of the TR7/8. Even cars from other countries beyond the UK had that issue, including the USA. Many potential middle class customers saw their jobs disappear, faced lower wages, significant inflation on everything they bought, so buying a 2-seat 'sports car' was unaffordable and wasteful idea. Many were shifting to 4 seat sports coupes/hatchbacks like the contemporary VW Golf/Rabbit and Japanese built cars as relatively better engineered and made. If one wanted a sports car, they could find many for sale on the used market for far cheaper. Dealers of BL products were losing money as declining sales, bad product, too many warranty claims, difficulty in getting parts from strike prone factories with some switching to Japanese brands. The need to meet pollution standards meant finicky carburetors and other control systems, including catalytic converters only need in the US/Canadian market making them more expensive, less reliable and poorer performers.
Personally I didn’t like the look of the car but loved the TR6 looks. I’ve owned a couple of Triumphs and had very few problems with them. 👍