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.
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 👍
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
@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 UA-camrs, 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. 😆
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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🎉
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!
@@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.
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!!
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.
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……
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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...
@@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
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.
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?
Still looks great. I wanted one then. I want one now. Harris Mann, I salute you.
Good video documenting another chapter about the failures in the tragic story of BL.
Thanks James
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.
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.
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.
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 UA-camrs, 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 think now days it looks great 👍
I do too, it was ahead of its time.
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.
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
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.
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
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 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.
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🎉
"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.
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.
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!!
Living up to the TR6 and GT6, it was quite an impressive little car
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.
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.
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.
Great job and interesting of the car that could of one great tr cars good job Tom keep it up
Thanks, will do!
Great video 👍 Another example of politics and business destroying a possible bread and butter earner for BL.
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.
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.
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
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...
Interesting 2 seater saloon, with Ford Anglia vibes.
You could say TR7 never had a chance of succeeding
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
Brilliant thanks
Very welcome
They should have just made the TR8 that was one of the biggest mistakes
Think the uk government should buy back the Triumph name and create an electric sports car
im speke less