Triumph TR7: How the TR7 almost Triumphed over Leyland’s ineptitude
The Triumph TR7 has turned out to be one of the important cars of the 1970s. But it was not one of the best. Nor, despite Time magazine’s inclusion of the TR7 in its list of the world’s 50 worst cars, was it to be numbered among the most notorious lemons. What is so important about this last true Triumph (along with the closely related TR8) is that it documents so much about the state of the automotive world in 1975 when the TR7 was introduced to the US market.
More than any other single vehicle TR7 reflects the crippling corporate difficulties facing Leyland. While it was not essentially a poor design, it was the victim of appalling build quality. Initially the TR7 was thrown together in Triumph’s Speke factory on Merseyside but production was later transferred to the main plant at Canley in Coventry, where it was built better but still poorly.
The first TR7s went down the line at Speke in September 1974. Strike action was beginning to have a huge impact on quality throughout Leyland’s huge and disordered product range. A story (almost certainly apocryphal) which I remember from the late 1970s concerned a Jaguar XJ Series 2. The owner of this car repeatedly returned to the dealer in search of an elusive but loud rattle. Finally, a large spanner was found behind the rear seat with a note attached: ‘bet it took you bastards a long time to find this!’ There was evidence of union sabotage in British factories.
New Leyland boss, Michael Edwardes, bent on cost–cutting measures, closed the Speke plant in May 1978 after a four months strike. The workers at Canley threatened to refuse to build the TR7 but were talked around – Edwardes having said that if the TR7 didn’t get built in Canley it wouldn’t get built anywhere – and TR7 production began there in October. But no TR7s were made for about nine months.
The closure of Speke also spelled the end of another impressive production–ready Triumph sports car, the Lynx, which had been scheduled to begin going down the line in mid–1978. The Lynx was a 2 + 2 coupe version of the TR7 powered by the Rover 3.5–litre V8: it promised to be a cracker! It was to have replaced the Stag, which was already delivering mammoth warranty problems.
The design of the TR7 was dogged by compromise from the start. Leyland difficulties intruded on the product planning and even the choice of brand: would the MGB’s successor be badged ‘MG’ or ‘Triumph’?
In 1968 the relatively successful Leyland Motor Corporation (LMC) merged with the chaotic British Motor Holdings (BMH, formerly BMC). LMC Chairman, Sir Donald Stokes, who had commenced his engineering apprenticeship at Leyland in 1930, was appointed Chairman of the new group. If anything, the existing rivalry–cum–antagonism between MG and Triumph intensified when the marques became bedfellows. It is easy to see why Stokes’s 38–year connection with Triumph would lead to his favouring that choice.
In 1969 work began on the Triumph Bullet, which was intended to replace the Spitfire and GT6. It was quite a conservative front–engined rear–drive model. Meanwhile at Abingdon, MG was developing its next generation sports car, the mid–engined AD021 with Hydrolastic suspension.
Then the decision was taken to make just one Leyland sports car to replace the ageing MGs and Triumphs. Given the Bullet was more conventional, cheaper to build and could use some existing componentry, it quickly won the contest. In–house designer Harris Mann was charged with developing a sexier design and the plan was for the TR7 to be the entry level model in a new range of sports cars, some possibly being badged as MGs.
The first potential design problem came with the decision to build the TR7 with a fixed roof. It was widely anticipated that strict new roll–over safety legislation in the US would spell an end to open cars, but that never actually happened, even though Cadillac made some capital by selling what it promised was its last ever batch of convertibles. (The TR7 Convertible was released Stateside in July 1979 and in the UK the following March.) Early in the program it had a targa roof but the engineers could not guarantee that this configuration would pass the anticipated new US laws and so a solid roof was chosen with the option of a sunroof.
In some respects the wedgey TR7 was itself wedged – wedged between changing ideas about the definition of a sports car, wedged between the era of ‘dirty’ engines and restrictive anti–pollution legislation, wedged between unhappy unionists and Leyland management bent on cutting costs, and wedged between the competing traditions of MG and Triumph. The result was a sports car that may as well have been designed by a committee. It’s amazing the TR7 wasn’t a much less appealing car!
It followed a long, famous line of TR sports cars, all of which had been convertibles. Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s my idea of a ‘sports car’ began with rooflessness. I note that then Wheels editor, Peter Robinson, who is a few years older than I am, brought this idea to print in his TR7 road test. The August 1978 edition report is headed: ‘Leyland’s new sports car. Is it…Triumph’s two seater sedan?’ In this sense, then, it is arguable that the TR7 was more like a successor to the MGB GT coupe than to the roadster.
The unique Harris Mann shape in one way reminds me of what one musical critic said of Wagner: ‘Wagner’s music is better than it sounds’. The TR7 wasn’t as ugly as it looked. Harris Mann’s design had a certain integrity and was absolutely up to date for the time, but those heavy US bumpers (capable of surviving a 5 mph impact undamaged) upset the styling in much the way they did that of the MGB.
Crash safety was not the only area influencing the design of cars with the United States of America on their agenda. Emissions legislation meant that the TR7’s already marginal performance was dramatically compromised. The plan had been to offer two versions, the standard car with the Dolomite’s 8–valve cylinder head and 110 brake horsepower with the TR7 Sprint using the 16–valve head that made the Dolomite Sprint such an exciting performer. But the Sprint engine could never have met the American rules. So an almost adequate 110 in European–spec dropped to 90 for the so–called ‘Federal’ rules and just 76 to meet the unique demands of the Californian legislature.
Given the TR7’s position within Triumph’s TR heritage, all three of these numbers look strange. Its TR6 predecessor was the proverbial hairy–chested, raw–boned, musclebound ragtop sports car. (I am put in mind of how the genteel pagoda–roof Mercedes–Benz 230SL was expected to replace the 300SL Gullwing, after the passing of nearly a decade.)
The 1970s was a grim decade for petrolheads (once we’d gone beyond the glory days of the Phase III). We look back now and shake our heads at a ‘sports car’ with a top speed of 174km/h and which required 18.1 seconds to reach 100km/h (although the European cars were significantly quicker). The Oz–tuned (for ADR 27A) TR7 was really only a bit more accelerative than the MGB and even back in 1962 the ‘B’ was not regarded as particularly rapid. The better part of a decade had elapsed since the launch of the MGB and product planning for the TR7 and it is astonishing to think that a higher performance expectation was not set.
Eventually, of course, the TR8 arrived and that was some sort of a car! Car and Driver magazine lauded it as the ‘Re–invention of the Sports Car.’ It was only in 1980 with the TR8 that the product planning for the TR7 came to fruition. Yes, it was intended to replace the humble MGB but also some of Leyland’s more powerful sports car such as the TR6 and the Austin–Healey 3000 but, before the Rover 3.5–litre V8 was plumbed into the engine bay, expecting the TR7 to do the work of a Big Healey was like sending a boy on the proverbial man’s mission.
The TR7 made its US debut with reasonable success, although there were plenty of misgivings about the styling. At the 1975 Geneva Salon, Giorgetto Giugaro apparently looked at the car with a puzzled expression. He then walked around it and said, ‘oh, my God! They’ve done it to the other side as well.’
It was not until May 1976 that the TR7 was offered to British and European buyers. Almost two more years elapsed before it was released in Australia.
The earliest cars were available in four–speed manual and three–speed automatic guise, but later a five–speed manual gearbox could be specified. Oz–spec cars were all five–speeders with no automatic option. This was an excellent transmission, which was also used in The Jaguar Series III (a few manual examples of which were sold here) and the Rover SD1.
The Triumph Dolomite Sprint was dropped when it was obvious that it could never be made to pass ADR 27A which would come into force on 1 July 1976. That explains why we never got a TR7 Sprint, in which form I’m sure the car would have been quite desirable.
Researching this story has made me think I wouldn’t mind owning a TR7. I only drove one once and briefly. It was in mid–1978. The tartan upholstery made a favourable impression. The steering was wonderfully direct and accurate and it was quite a joyous thing to drive. But the performance was barely superior to that of the Passat TS I had recently sold and a long way short of my friend’s Fiat 124 CC Sport Coupe, as in more than a second slower through the standing 400 metres. Not only that, but the engine sounded unhappy. Peter Robinson expressed this succinctly in his road test:
Sadly, however, the engine feels strained and, while it will rev, gives the distinct impression that it would rather not. Indeed, with maximum torque developed at 3200rpm we found we changed up at 3000rpm more often than not. The redline of 6500 is ludicrous and the local engineers tell us they would prefer the tacho to be redlined at 5750, but since they get the car this way there is little they can do. Yes, the engine will run to 6500 but it sounds frantic and on the point of valve bounce and even from 5500 it’s struggling. Optimum acceleration times were achieved by changing up between five–five and six.
He could be describing the MGB!
Peter Robinson’s opinion of the TR7 was mostly positive:
Despite the TR7 being something of a contradiction – that so–sedan–like engine and the responsive handling, the two–seater bit with a closed coupe – it is a welcome addition to the ranks of sporting cars sold in Australia. At around $10,500 it is good value for money and has very little direct competition and if we would like more power then that is a tribute to the car’s fine handling.
The Triumph TR7 came to market in an era of the lumbering Mazda 121 coupe, the Datsun 208ZX and the Mitsubishi Scorpion. Compared with any of these it looked modern, rakish and purposeful. When it was being developed, brief thought was given to the increasingly fashionable mid–engine configuration but the bean–counters soon ruled that out. The car was still very well balanced with a nimble feel not always evident in front–engined sporty cars. Its rack and pinion steering was nicely weighted in an era when power steering was still comparatively rare, especially in sports cars or anything smaller than a Fairlane. For most of us air–conditioning meant opening the driver’s window (and maybe even leaning the elbow on the sill in Brock fashion). Alfa Romeo would not even offer power steering as an option in its GTV6, as late as 1987 because the engineers and marketing executives believed that this feature was inappropriate in a sports car.
So the Triumph TR7 stands towards the end of an era. Its simplicity is now very appealing and largely explains an increasing following. Had it come to market without those ugly bumpers and with the Sprint engine beneath its lovely bonnet, classic status might have arrived for the successor to the MGB many years earlier than it has.
