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.
@@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.
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 👍
What an absolute crazy car, a so called sports car with a puny 4 cylinder engine this had to compete against the magnificent Nissan 240Z, possibly the best sports car ever ( I owned a TR7 when I lived in UK couldn't wait to get rid of it, can't get hold of a 240Z but keep looking)
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! 🇬🇧
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.
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.
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:
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
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.
Not just a strike happy workforce but dreadful communication too. There's a video on YT showing striking workers at Speke Livepool. One worker tells a tale of their factory (actually in Hunts Cross) ordering a few hundred left hand front wings, as they were running out of them but had plenty of right hand wings. What did Longbridge do? Send them a few hundred more right hand front wings of course! So they ended up with a shed load of right hand wings and no left handers. This obviously halted production for a time. British Leyland, a good idea (for somebody at the time) that clearly wasn't any good at all! Look at the Stag, rather than using the tried and tested Rover V8, they designed a brand new OHC engine with looong timing chains, and a radiator too small to do the job of cooling the engine. Leyland was the death knoll of our car industry, as it had taken over most of the brands that were left in the 70's.
@@baylessnow That makes sense. I am in my final months at Boeing. Boeing commercial will recover but it’s been 20 years of bad management leading up to today.
@@jamesdellaneve9005 Jeremy Clarkson made a video called Who Killed the British Car Industry. Before the disaster that was British Leyland, which I mentioned, the rot was put into place by two men, namely Herbert Austin of Austin and Leonard Lord of Morris, who took over from William Morris after he retired. th-cam.com/video/b9ztUlve9jc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Fppz5wdIqVsurFZB
@@baylessnowNot to mention having cars that competed with each other. Rover 2000 vs. Triumph 2000 vs Austin Princess (wedge version) then Triumph GT6 vs MGB GT, Rover 3500 bs Jag XJ6 ETC ETC
I went to college in the early 80's with a guy who had a V8 version. His dad was a doctor and bought it and then passed it on to the lad. It was a very nice car and seemed to me at the time well built. I've had a soft spot for these cars ever since. Nice video about a sad sad time in the British motor industry.
I owned a brand new 1980 TR8 convertible, fully optioned as an adventurous teenager. At that time in America, the V8 wedge was an oddball and were far and few between. But it was a fabulous everyday driver - roomy and comfortable with an enormous glovebox and very spacious trunk, an excellent heater and a very powerful AC system, a lovely 5 speed shifter and decent brakes (a weak spot) and a marvelously compliant yet firm ride. An absolute joy to own with almost no running issues (I went through a bad batch of solenoids for the dual cooling fans). ANY British car from ANY era will have it's faults and shortcomings that can usually be corrected with some common sense restomodding. Drive a well sorted TR8/7 for a day on your favorite driving route and you'll see how wonderful these cars are. Thank you for the post - I'm a follower now!
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
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.
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.
Hi Tom I am new to the TH-cam posting space. I have a soft spot for the Triumph history specifically The TR Line as that is what I had purchase back in 1981. I love the way you key in on Triumph story and bring it to life. I on the other hand like to do more of the hands on part. I have recently posted on TH-cam of what drives me. My 1976 TR7 that was stored for 29 years because family life took president but now for the past year and a half took it upon myself to pick up where Leyland motors left off and created a TR9 concept car. Just the other day I debued my TR9 at Extreme Machines in New Jersey USA. I would love to collaborate and share. Thanks you for the in-depth Triumph history keeping it alive and interesting. AP
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.
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.
Yes that footage was from a report about Speke and the TR7 from the 1970s. Lots of Speke workers complaining about the problems described in this video. It used to be on youtube but I can't seem to find it now.
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 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.
@@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 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 🇬🇧
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 TH-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. 😆
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.
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.
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.
Iconic car, in a weird way. Excellent video. Pretty thorough historically, lots of great historical footage. Granted, it's not like you could shoot much video of them driving around now!
11:32 That is my TR7 Convertible!! I thought me how to work on a car, as by the time I sold it, I had to litterly fix everything on that car. I loved it, was to young to know any better. TODAY I drive a Mazda MX5 Miata, and it NEVER breaks!! TR7 Started my love for convertibles it was a fun car to drive and speed around Califorina in the 80s!
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.
Purdey drove her TR7 in most episodes of The New Avengers , or else an MG . Steed had his Broadspeed XJ12 Coupe , Range Rover and Rover SD1 ( not to mention his Bentley ) ; Gambit drove either the Jaguar XJS or a Range Rover in so many episodes - clearly the producers had a deal with BL as they drove BL cars almost exclusively . Sadly , no amount of product placement could help to sell bad cars ; but on the other hand , it worked very well for Mercedes-Benz thanks to their cars being prominently placed in shows like Dallas , where JR Ewing's S-Class , Bobby's R107 SL , and Pamela's W123 estate ( and R107 ) became status symbols , but then they were genuinely good cars which were very well engineered and were aspirational products towards which many customers strove anyway .
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 agree , all these cars were ugly , badly built and unreliable . Earlier TRs , the Dolomites , the 2000 and 2500 , and of course the STAG were great looking cars , but BL just lost it around 1970 and started producing rubbish . Even within other brands , when you can go from a handsome car like the P5B to the SD1 ( which was one of BLs better offerings , but still downhill ) and then to badge engineered Jap cr@p , the story is the same .
@@derekheeps1244 Sir William Lyons said he put so much effort into the look of his cars, because it ultimately didn't cost extra to make something beautiful, but improved the Jaguar's desirability and bottom line. British cars of all stripes before the awful 70's designs were world beaters in the main. The TR7 was just a further example of a car company being run by people who didn't really know what a good car should look like. For what it's worth, I actually thought the SD1 was a rare exception from that era.
@@derekheeps1244 Sir William Lyons said he put so much effort into the look of his cars, because it ultimately didn't cost extra to make something beautiful, but improved the Jaguar's desirability and bottom line. British cars of all stripes before the awful 70's designs were world beaters in the main. The TR7 was just a further example of a car company being run by people who didn't really know what a good car should look like. For what it's worth, I actually thought the SD1 was a rare exception from that era.
I've owned Spitfires since 1981 and I still have my first. I attend many British car shows over here in the southeast USA. Several years ago, I was able to meet a former member of marketing management of Standard Triumph in the US market. He described the frequent labor union strikes that caused work stoppage and poor build quality. He also described how the introduction of the TR7 was sabotaged and nearly ruined by horrible workmanship on the first 35 TR7's shipped to the USA (every one of the 35 had obvious problems and/or missing parts). The Triumph racing team mechanics had to be flown in from California to swap parts and rebuild as many as they could for the press event. They managed to get 17 of the 35 TR7's in running condition and presentable for the introduction event. Granted, this is from the management perspective, but he did say as you mentioned that management and labor really disliked each other, which caused them to go on strike often, then build quality suffers, the customers see the results and tell their friends, hence sales slump, and the company closes. If you have spoken with former Triumph factory labor union guys AND former Triumph management, then you can have a balanced discussion in your video.
Learned to drive on a Herald, rebuilt a Vitesse convertible from a write off, then got a convertible TR7 in 1981. Enough room in the boot for us to go camping across Europe. Never let us down, but it was a Conley car of course. Some lovely memories for us in first few years of marriage. Still married, but TR7 no more. Happy days.
I almost bought a used one in 1983 when I was 18. I was sitting in the sales office with the guy going over the paperwork and he asked me if this was going to be my only car. Me being 18 and working at McDonalds I didn’t understand that some people had two cars, a “daily driver” and a “fun” car, so of course I told him yes, this would be my only car. He took a deep breath and said “son, I don’t think I can sell you this car. It’s fun to drive, but you’re going to spend a lot of time and money fixing things that go wrong. If you just need a reliable car to get you to work and back, buy something else” A week later I bought an Audi from another dealer. I kinda feel like I dodged a bullet, also he was probably the only honest used car salesman I ever met.
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.
Car manufacturing was a real problem worldwide. Ask any US car buyer about Dodge Aspen, Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega, Cadillac Cimmaron, and a slew of other underpowered, poorly designed and built cars. Even the Germans struggled to meet rapidly changing regulations. No wonder brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan gained a foothold around the globe.
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.
The BIW ended up being produced in Austin Rovers Swindon plant. I did my work experience there and remember being shown along the production line and thinking how many small parts went into a body shell. Over 40 years have passed and I now run that plant, and have a V8 DHC in my barn waiting for refurbishment! I have looked in all the dark corners for a stash of old parts (that was always the rumour that workers hid them away for the future when they were rare) but sadly none exist, and the tooling was scrapped long ago on a big tidy up 😢
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.
As a young driver, I bought a 'second hand' TR7 in the late 90s. The accelerator jammed on the motorway and I had to turn the ignition off at around 70mph.... very scary.
My father got an early UK TR7 as part of a company sponsored mid-life crisis; it lasted less than 2 weeks before smoke started pouring out of the dashboard, and it caught fire. After that, he went back to the Ford Granada; a brand and model he stayed with for the rest of his life.
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.
Everything you say is spot on, I gave up arguing with the idiots who knock the Wedge, as I know most of them have never driven one let alone owned one. The wedge is simply a great car that suffered from bad management and a f jng awful useless workforce in Speke.
My dad and I went to PJ Evans to have a sit in the new TR7, back in '76. I was immediately impressed with it (although too young to drive a car, then). I'm still a fan, today.
As the regional warranty manager for the western half of the USA for the TR7-8 years, I can recall chapter and verse many of the issues we had with them. First versions had a substandard four speed gearbox and back axle. This gearbox was never intended to be used in a 2 liter car, same with the back axle. The engine driven high mounted water pump would become ineffective if there as any drop in coolant level and topping up was problematic. As a result engine overheating was an issue and if severe, the cylinder head warped making it unusable due to the OHC design. The pop up headlamps shed their paint readily. And on top of these engineering shortcomings there was the poor BL build quality of the era. Due to the USA threat of not continuing to import them unless the gearbox was changed along with the back axle, the quality did begin to improve by 1978 but it probably did not help that the cars production location was moved 3 times during its production run. The TR8 was better and even more so when EFI was finally fitted to both the late TR7s and most of the 50 state TR8s by 1981. As to how these cars drove, they did excel and had factory conveniences like AC and on the 8, power steering. Sad that they were not more successful from the start.
I had a '76 TR7. Not only did it have poor build quality, it used unreliable components. By 1980, I had a fire that started in the wiring harness, a failed fuel pump, a failed headlight mechanism, a failed ignition, two failed Lucas (Prince of Darkness) rectifiers in the alternator, a failed air (smog) pump, a failed wheel bearing, and a clutch that fragged. Many of these failures left me stranded on the side of the road and I was once even stranded on the freeway in the middle of rush hour in the middle lane. I couldn't keep it running for more than a month or two at a time. So I traded it in on a new car. A year later I drove past it broken down on the side of the road with smoke coming out from under the hood (bonnet). I almost stopped to help, but I was afraid that the new owner might do me harm if he found out that I was the previous owner. It was the worst car I've ever owned, by far.
I had a second hand blue old coupe which I purchased cheap around 1990, but within 6 months I needed to change the diff, so at the same time I also replaced the gearbox to a five speed box from a rover and the car came alive, and a much nicer ride. I fitted a remote controlled alarm that I connected to the headlights instead of hazzard lights, that would make the headlights blink popping up and down, great fun. It was a fun car to drive (with the 5 speed gearbox at least), and we enjoyed every monment whilst it lasted. It failed MOT a few years later due to rust and was scraped after sitting in a friends garage for another couple of years. Great memories, but a lot of work keeping it going.
My parents bought me a 77 in 86. It never did run right, something about the choke system. The passenger headlight had to be raised manually. Rusted quickly being in Minnesota. I hung on to it for decades then brought it to the scrap yard.
Anxious to read the comments, but fascinated to learn the back story. On this side of the pond, the tarnish began with dash light rheostats melting dashboards, undersize front brake pads on interminable backorder, head gaskets galore, and 4sp gearboxes filled with gravel. Great to see the rally car shots, and Ken Slagle beating on the best TR's ever built: his.
I know the TR7 was a bit of a poke. My Dad built them in the Triumph factory located in Torrington Ave, Coventry. He was made redundant after the factory closed and managed to buy one in 1984. Because he worked in the rectification section, he knew the TR series cars inside and out. It took him 8 months to get the one he had 100% pin perfect. Several dealers gave him big offers that he refused. That car is now in the huge Coventry Motor Museum after he donated it in 1998. The crying is a shame about the various British car brands (Morris, MG, Rover, Land Rover, Jaguar, Triumph, Riley, and Wolseley) that were merged by the Labour government. BL wiped out the entire management and quality leaders when it fired them and hired Ford Executives. They didn't care a damn about a series of companies that up to that point had different cultures and different styles of design. They tried making BL another mini Ford and that wouldn't work in the UK. I was born and bred in Coventry, my entire family were employed in one of the many factories and component manufacturers located there. They were all apprenticed tradesmen. As a kid, you knew you had a range of companies you could get a proper apprenticeship upon leaving school. The great names within the city are all gone now. The blame has to lay with the Labour government at the time let the unions destroy a city full of industry. Names that were once in the city were famous the world over, such as Jaguar, Armstrong Siddeley, Hawker, Alvis, Hillman, Chrysler, Triumph, Singer, Humber, Lanchester, Rover, Rootes, Standard, Hillman, Chrysler, Peugeot, Daimler, Rover, Standard, Siddeley, Riley, Wickmans, Webster and Bennett, Matrix Churchill, Alfred Herbert, GEC, Massey Fergusson, Lucas Industries, AVRO, Rolls Royce, Rudge Whitworth, Climax, Courtaulds and Lea-Francis, are mostly gone. Although Jaguar, London Taxis and Peugeot are still in the City. Newer, high-tech and science-led industries are the fastest growing in a City that has 3 Universities.
How did that turn out? I almost bought one (beautiful in yellow) from a car lot in San Diego when I got out of Navy bootcamp in 1980. They offered me a test drive and it wouldn't start so I walked away. (edit to add when I was a kid I saw a road test comparison of four mid engine sports cars, X19, Dino, 914, and iirc a Lotus Europa. For the rest of my life I've wanted any one of those four. At this point I think my only hope would be a restorable 914).
@@kraig7777 It was my favorite car I owned. I hope to have another one day, but they are worth quite a bit more now. Oh, I also came close to getting a 914, but I was short a couple hundred dollars, and the owner didn't want come down. haha
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 sat in a TR7 at the 1975 Earls Court motor show aged 15 . Finally got a convertible in 1985, a 1981 Solihull in Oporto metallic. Great fun for 15 years till I took it off the road in 2000 because I was skint! Sold as a non runner in 2008 , since converted to 4.6 V8 I believe. TYJ677X I still miss you 😢.
My first real job was at a Triumph/Fiat/VW dealer while still in high school. I was hired to work in the VW part of the shop but soon after I started there one of only two guys who worked on Triumphs quit so they too ended up being my problem. Beginning with completing an engine job on one that the guy who quit had torn apart. The one thing I remember most about the TR7 was how many we had come in with blown headgaskets, coolant leaks, water leaks, and electrical issues. The TR6 however was a good car, as was the Spitfire and GT6. I drove a TR6 for a few years myself, partly at the insistence of the owner there. To his credit, he sold me a monty clean one in green for almost nothing at the time. Looking back, I really wish I had kept the TR6, but I never wanted to own or drive a TR7, not then, not now. I sold the TR6 when rust started to get the better of it after about 8 years or so of it being my daily driver to work.
During 1976 to 1979 I was employed as part of a team of 4 trainee sales staff selling the whole of the range of cars and vans for a Leyland Cars distributors. We had a great team but a disastrous service department, and considering all the unfortunate problems we had with the cars along with the flack the cars received off the critics, I still maintained a great loyalty and love towards them. Our TR7 demonstrators were totally reliable and I remember the 4 speed being quicker than the 5 speed. It's just a shame it was not a 2 + 2 as we would have been able to sell more of them. I used to follow them on the RAC rallies and the sound of the V8's was just magic. Considering how big BL had become I was deeply saddened when it eventually fell apart. At least I have the great memories of when I was selling them.
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.
@@flybobbie1449 All the Dallas characters were best known for Driving Mercedes-Benz : JR with his succession of S-Class ( W116 , W126 and W140 ) ; Sue-Ellen had S-Classes , SLs and W123s ; Bobby for his Red R107SL as well as Pamela having one , in addition to her W123 estate . One of the minor characters had a TR7 and Fiat X-1/9 but they did not feature in many episodes . The product placement worked well for Mercedes-Benz as many people aspired to both the cars and the lifestyle . No amount of product placement though will sell bad cars .
Purdey in one scene is seen getting out of an aircraft. We later operated that aircraft at out club late 80's. I flew it for a scene in tv series Boon. Was later written off when flown into a hill.
I had a TR7 it was a nice car to drive but mine had the usual '7 problems, radiator, wiring harness and cylinder head,the latter prompted the sale. I always thought the front looked great but the designers seemed to run out of enthusiasm by the time they reached the rear. I have a mate who owns 2 TR8 rally cars (hi Terry) very potent machines, the TR7 project should have lived a lot longer.
A TR7 was my first car after passing my test in the early 1990’s. I had it for 5 years. Classic car insurance, brilliant for a skint student. Loved it.
I bought an '80 TR7 off of the showroom floor in Durham, NC, and used it as a daily driver for four years before wrecking it. Much like my earlier Spitfire it was a mechanical challenge, but great fun to drive. I wish I still had one.
In 1982 I lodged in the Mount pleasant area of Swansea. My landlord used to go to the Rock & Fountain pub in Mumbles with the couple next door, who owned TR7. They sat inside. He travelled in the boot! I was gobsmacked when I first witnessed this.
I remember the commercials, and being in junior high, my friends and I thought it was a really cool car. But as soon as the commercials appeared, they disappeared just as fast. To my recollection, I've never seen a TR7 in the flesh
Thanks for this interesting but very sad story! I remember back in the 80ies my father had a TR7 drophead in a kind of bronze metallic (don't know the exact name of the colour). I just loved this car! Here in Austria british cars have always been quite rare and the rest of my family drove Volkswagen Beetle, Golf and other boring cars like that, but for my father the Triumph was part of his lifestyle: I still remember driving around in the open car, my father smoking his John Player's No6 and me trying to fish a candy out of the can of Smith&Kendon's Travelsweets, that he always had in the centre console 🙂 Oh yes, those were the days... 😉
Launched when I was in junior school. I wanted one so badly when I gre up. The closest I got was a spin in one that my cousin bought off my mums hasband at the time. It was The2.0 L one in British racing green. Beige check uphostery. It really suited her, and she loved it. Unfortunately she only drove it 5 times before she was killed in her boyfreinds clapped out mini in a head on collision. RIP Claire, I will always remember that ride.
I was a mechanic in America back then, and we loved/hated working on these. We loved them because the shoddy build quality and horrible engineering meant we got to make money repairing them, but hated them because Triumph didn’t set up a decent parts supply infrastructure in the US, so ordering even the simplest of parts, such as a thermostat, would take six to eight weeks.
The TR series was amazing. A affordable fun sports car for the masses. I have a 1967 TR5. Thats a TR4a Body with the Lucus fuel injection Straight 6 which was used n the TR6. The TR7 could have been amazing without the incompetent management of Leyland, the beginning of the complete decline of the British car and motorcycle industry. I still think the TR7 its an iconic looking car. Great vid.
Great video. I would have appreciated one or two hints towards Triumph Motorcycles. Was this a very different company, or what happened around the Bonneville platform during this time?
A major factor in MG’s and Triumph’s lagging desirability is their lack of technological advancement including the live axle rear suspension as you mentioned, as well as continuing their over head valve design instead of going for a higher tech and higher power over head cam design.
I've owned a Triumph GT6 for 40+ years, back in the day a good friend had a TR7. We had many MANY "friendly" competitions. While the GT6 had a few upgrades ( better carbs, a header, and other bits and bobs ). The GT6 outperformed the TR7 in ALL ways, in fact I MUCH preferred the GT6; I drove both cars often. Over the years I upgraded to a 5 speed, and a vastly improved rear suspension, the GT6 is now a VASTLY superior car to the TR7. That being said, the TR7 looks GREAT, and I've sure with proper development the car would have been a winner.
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!
Well a friend dad bought him one in high school. It had massive wiring issues . It was in the shop more than on the road for nearly 6 months. It wasn’t a powerhouse but a fun and sporty looking car to drive.
The TR7 was a good looking body but Lancia Stratos was a great looking 'wedge style' body....There was also the wedge shaped TVR 280i which looked great.
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.)
I had one back in the early 80's when I was stationed at Bentwaters. The car did not even make it home on the day I bought it. Head gasket let go, a common thing I learned. Also the seller had the same issue and the unit had a warped head the seller hidden by using two head gaskets. The car sat for weeks until we dropped a dolomite sprint engine in it (Half a stag engine mostly). The car was awesome at that point but I had to leave it in England when I left.
I remember as kids, my brother and I getting very excited at every sighting of a 7 on their release to the streets, calling out in the same manner as for an ice cream van. Still a great looker today, they were a lot more futuristic then.
I lhave had a few TR7s from early 76 to 1982 - and i really loved driving them they were gorgeous cars to drive - would gladly have another one thats for sure
This video overlooks that fact that British entry into the EEC involved negotiation currency conversion rates. the French had reduced the value of the Franc to increase exports throughout Europe successfully, but Britain was trying to maximize the value of the Pound during these negotiations. The result was that British exports to the USA increased in price and became less competitive. When BL tried to reduce labor costs to bring export prices down the unions went on strike, not realizing that with over 7000 unsold export TR7s sitting in fields, BL didn't need them back at work so a stalemate ensued. The incompetence of the British government of the time killed the British auto industry, not the unions. BTW, I have owned my 1980 TR7 Spider since 1982. It's a great car, once I literally threw away the anemic California spec motor in replaced it with a perfectly reliable Buick V6 in 1983. I swear that BL executive management couldn't organize a booze up in a brewery and The Macmillan and Heath governments were too focused on Europe to see what was happening in the USA.
I got an Inca yellow TR7 in August 78; it was my first new car. At that time TR7s, along with Spitfires, MGBs, Midgets, and I guess many other BL models were being sold off with huge discounts. As a 20 year old chap, the feeling of driving a bright yellow sports car was fantastic. BUT not as fantastic as the feeling of disappointment every time it went back to the dealer for yet more warranty work ..... and it spent many long periods sitting in their workshops. Indeed, I must have driven the garage's courtesy Morris Marina as much as the TR7 over the first year or so. (Pay for a TR7, drive a Marina - not a great marketing strategy!) The huge list of mechanical and electrical woes was overshadowed by the catastrophic problems with the bodywork. Yes, it had two total resprays and many, many paint repairs on the joins between panels. Paint simply wouldn't stick to the paste used to fill the body seams, and rust would appear a few weeks after every paint application. Oh dear! I loved my TR7, and hated it, and didn't get to drive it too much before I eventually sold it for not very much money.
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.
Great video. Always had a soft spot for these as a child growing up in the 70’s. In my opinion, the British Leyland merger should not have taken place. There was too much in-house rivalry and no singing from the same hymn sheet. The Unions and British Factory Worker ethic have ruined the whole of the British Car Industry. Management who were fond of cutting corners to save money, would give the pubic a compromised product. There are so many factors to blame for the failure of the TR7. First of which, it should have been launched with the 16valve Dolomite Sprint engine.
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🎉
A friend had one. He was driving at 60mph and was approaching a left hand bend. When he applied the brakes, they failed completely and he went through a stone wall. The reason for the brake failure? The discs separated from the rotors!
I was a huge fan of the TR7 as a boy. I loved the shape, those huge bumpers, the pop up headlights and the brightly coloured check seats and how far away the bottom of the windscreen was. I was lucky enough to get to sit in one on many occasions because my dad had an SD1 so we were spending a lot of time at the BL dealers.
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....
The older they get the better looking they're becoming.
@@tomdrives It was👍. Im in the Midlands UK
What an absolute crazy car, a so called sports car with a puny 4 cylinder engine this had to compete against the magnificent Nissan 240Z, possibly the best sports car ever ( I owned a TR7 when I lived in UK couldn't wait to get rid of it, can't get hold of a 240Z but keep looking)
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! 🇬🇧
" Selling stick insects "..Good one..
😂 Brilliant
😹👍
Is "stick insects" code for drugs ?... 😕🙄😂
I still have red and a yellow scalectrix tr7 if you miss them that much can't do much about the hair though
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.
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!
One of the few places they wouldn't rust away to nothing .
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:
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
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.
Not just a strike happy workforce but dreadful communication too. There's a video on YT showing striking workers at Speke Livepool. One worker tells a tale of their factory (actually in Hunts Cross) ordering a few hundred left hand front wings, as they were running out of them but had plenty of right hand wings. What did Longbridge do? Send them a few hundred more right hand front wings of course! So they ended up with a shed load of right hand wings and no left handers. This obviously halted production for a time. British Leyland, a good idea (for somebody at the time) that clearly wasn't any good at all! Look at the Stag, rather than using the tried and tested Rover V8, they designed a brand new OHC engine with looong timing chains, and a radiator too small to do the job of cooling the engine. Leyland was the death knoll of our car industry, as it had taken over most of the brands that were left in the 70's.
@@baylessnow That makes sense. I am in my final months at Boeing. Boeing commercial will recover but it’s been 20 years of bad management leading up to today.
@@jamesdellaneve9005 Jeremy Clarkson made a video called Who Killed the British Car Industry. Before the disaster that was British Leyland, which I mentioned, the rot was put into place by two men, namely Herbert Austin of Austin and Leonard Lord of Morris, who took over from William Morris after he retired.
th-cam.com/video/b9ztUlve9jc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Fppz5wdIqVsurFZB
@@baylessnowNot to mention having cars that competed with each other. Rover 2000 vs. Triumph 2000 vs Austin Princess (wedge version) then Triumph GT6 vs MGB GT, Rover 3500 bs Jag XJ6 ETC ETC
I went to college in the early 80's with a guy who had a V8 version. His dad was a doctor and bought it and then passed it on to the lad. It was a very nice car and seemed to me at the time well built. I've had a soft spot for these cars ever since. Nice video about a sad sad time in the British motor industry.
I owned a brand new 1980 TR8 convertible, fully optioned as an adventurous teenager. At that time in America, the V8 wedge was an oddball and were far and few between. But it was a fabulous everyday driver - roomy and comfortable with an enormous glovebox and very spacious trunk, an excellent heater and a very powerful AC system, a lovely 5 speed shifter and decent brakes (a weak spot) and a marvelously compliant yet firm ride. An absolute joy to own with almost no running issues (I went through a bad batch of solenoids for the dual cooling fans). ANY British car from ANY era will have it's faults and shortcomings that can usually be corrected with some common sense restomodding. Drive a well sorted TR8/7 for a day on your favorite driving route and you'll see how wonderful these cars are. Thank you for the post - I'm a follower now!
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
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
You should've told your RSM to f.....oh no, hang on.....
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.
Buy one then, they are not too expensive and they are GREEEAATTTT 🤣🤣
@@terryc8164 I would But one but I am going through My 30 year 90s faze so I got rid of my Mustang and I am scratching my Kawasaki Ninja Itch...
So sad! So many legendary makes that effectively disappeared.
and no wonder !
Hi Tom I am new to the TH-cam posting space. I have a soft spot for the Triumph history specifically The TR Line as that is what I had purchase back in 1981. I love the way you key in on Triumph story and bring it to life. I on the other hand like to do more of the hands on part. I have recently posted on TH-cam of what drives me. My 1976 TR7 that was stored for 29 years because family life took president but now for the past year and a half took it upon myself to pick up where Leyland motors left off and created a TR9 concept car. Just the other day I debued my TR9 at Extreme Machines in New Jersey USA. I would love to collaborate and share. Thanks you for the in-depth Triumph history keeping it alive and interesting. AP
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.
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.
It probably says that they were poorly paid .
Yes that footage was from a report about Speke and the TR7 from the 1970s. Lots of Speke workers complaining about the problems described in this video. It used to be on youtube but I can't seem to find it now.
That was and still is typical of speke. Scousers are a waste of space@@Wil-nh5kz
"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.
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 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 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 🇬🇧
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 TH-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.
😆
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.
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.
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.
it was ugly and disproportioned then , and it hasn't improved with age . The TR6 was a FAR better looking car .
@@derekheeps1244100% agree. I remember it coming out and thinking what the hell have they done. Hideous.
Iconic car, in a weird way. Excellent video. Pretty thorough historically, lots of great historical footage. Granted, it's not like you could shoot much video of them driving around now!
Great documentary, keep it up please
11:32 That is my TR7 Convertible!! I thought me how to work on a car, as by the time I sold it, I had to litterly fix everything on that car. I loved it, was to young to know any better. TODAY I drive a Mazda MX5 Miata, and it NEVER breaks!! TR7 Started my love for convertibles it was a fun car to drive and speed around Califorina in the 80s!
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.
Purdey drove her TR7 in most episodes of The New Avengers , or else an MG . Steed had his Broadspeed XJ12 Coupe , Range Rover and Rover SD1 ( not to mention his Bentley ) ; Gambit drove either the Jaguar XJS or a Range Rover in so many episodes - clearly the producers had a deal with BL as they drove BL cars almost exclusively .
Sadly , no amount of product placement could help to sell bad cars ; but on the other hand , it worked very well for Mercedes-Benz thanks to their cars being prominently placed in shows like Dallas , where JR Ewing's S-Class , Bobby's R107 SL , and Pamela's W123 estate ( and R107 ) became status symbols , but then they were genuinely good cars which were very well engineered and were aspirational products towards which many customers strove anyway .
I have my Fathers TR& Soft top, the last one ever made and today it has still only covered 6,000 miles !
My old man had a yellow tr6. Sometimes, when you make a master piece it's hard to better.
No, the TR7 was way better.
@manoo422 so true, you'll never convince a TR6 owner though 😂😂😂
@@terryc8164 Yes, the pipe and slippers brigade always think they are right.
@@manoo422👍👍😁😁
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 agree , all these cars were ugly , badly built and unreliable . Earlier TRs , the Dolomites , the 2000 and 2500 , and of course the STAG were great looking cars , but BL just lost it around 1970 and started producing rubbish . Even within other brands , when you can go from a handsome car like the P5B to the SD1 ( which was one of BLs better offerings , but still downhill ) and then to badge engineered Jap cr@p , the story is the same .
@@derekheeps1244 Sir William Lyons said he put so much effort into the look of his cars, because it ultimately didn't cost extra to make something beautiful, but improved the Jaguar's desirability and bottom line. British cars of all stripes before the awful 70's designs were world beaters in the main. The TR7 was just a further example of a car company being run by people who didn't really know what a good car should look like. For what it's worth, I actually thought the SD1 was a rare exception from that era.
@@derekheeps1244 Sir William Lyons said he put so much effort into the look of his cars, because it ultimately didn't cost extra to make something beautiful, but improved the Jaguar's desirability and bottom line. British cars of all stripes before the awful 70's designs were world beaters in the main. The TR7 was just a further example of a car company being run by people who didn't really know what a good car should look like. For what it's worth, I actually thought the SD1 was a rare exception from that era.
I've owned Spitfires since 1981 and I still have my first. I attend many British car shows over here in the southeast USA. Several years ago, I was able to meet a former member of marketing management of Standard Triumph in the US market. He described the frequent labor union strikes that caused work stoppage and poor build quality. He also described how the introduction of the TR7 was sabotaged and nearly ruined by horrible workmanship on the first 35 TR7's shipped to the USA (every one of the 35 had obvious problems and/or missing parts). The Triumph racing team mechanics had to be flown in from California to swap parts and rebuild as many as they could for the press event. They managed to get 17 of the 35 TR7's in running condition and presentable for the introduction event. Granted, this is from the management perspective, but he did say as you mentioned that management and labor really disliked each other, which caused them to go on strike often, then build quality suffers, the customers see the results and tell their friends, hence sales slump, and the company closes. If you have spoken with former Triumph factory labor union guys AND former Triumph management, then you can have a balanced discussion in your video.
Learned to drive on a Herald, rebuilt a Vitesse convertible from a write off, then got a convertible TR7 in 1981. Enough room in the boot for us to go camping across Europe. Never let us down, but it was a Conley car of course. Some lovely memories for us in first few years of marriage. Still married, but TR7 no more. Happy days.
I almost bought a used one in 1983 when I was 18. I was sitting in the sales office with the guy going over the paperwork and he asked me if this was going to be my only car. Me being 18 and working at McDonalds I didn’t understand that some people had two cars, a “daily driver” and a “fun” car, so of course I told him yes, this would be my only car. He took a deep breath and said “son, I don’t think I can sell you this car. It’s fun to drive, but you’re going to spend a lot of time and money fixing things that go wrong. If you just need a reliable car to get you to work and back, buy something else”
A week later I bought an Audi from another dealer.
I kinda feel like I dodged a bullet, also he was probably the only honest used car salesman I ever met.
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.
Great content. Well put together and excellent research.
Still looks great. I wanted one then. I want one now. Harris Mann, I salute you.
Nice video. You might want to get some sound absorbing material for where you record your audio.
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?
Car manufacturing was a real problem worldwide. Ask any US car buyer about Dodge Aspen, Ford Pinto, Chevy Vega, Cadillac Cimmaron, and a slew of other underpowered, poorly designed and built cars. Even the Germans struggled to meet rapidly changing regulations. No wonder brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan gained a foothold around the globe.
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.
The BIW ended up being produced in Austin Rovers Swindon plant. I did my work experience there and remember being shown along the production line and thinking how many small parts went into a body shell. Over 40 years have passed and I now run that plant, and have a V8 DHC in my barn waiting for refurbishment! I have looked in all the dark corners for a stash of old parts (that was always the rumour that workers hid them away for the future when they were rare) but sadly none exist, and the tooling was scrapped long ago on a big tidy up 😢
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 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.
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!
As a young driver, I bought a 'second hand' TR7 in the late 90s. The accelerator jammed on the motorway and I had to turn the ignition off at around 70mph.... very scary.
My father got an early UK TR7 as part of a company sponsored mid-life crisis; it lasted less than 2 weeks before smoke started pouring out of the dashboard, and it caught fire.
After that, he went back to the Ford Granada; a brand and model he stayed with for the rest of his life.
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.
Everything you say is spot on, I gave up arguing with the idiots who knock the Wedge, as I know most of them have never driven one let alone owned one. The wedge is simply a great car that suffered from bad management and a f jng awful useless workforce in Speke.
My dad and I went to PJ Evans to have a sit in the new TR7, back in '76. I was immediately impressed with it (although too young to drive a car, then). I'm still a fan, today.
As the regional warranty manager for the western half of the USA for the TR7-8 years, I can recall chapter and verse many of the issues we had with them. First versions had a substandard four speed gearbox and back axle. This gearbox was never intended to be used in a 2 liter car, same with the back axle. The engine driven high mounted water pump would become ineffective if there as any drop in coolant level and topping up was problematic. As a result engine overheating was an issue and if severe, the cylinder head warped making it unusable due to the OHC design. The pop up headlamps shed their paint readily. And on top of these engineering shortcomings there was the poor BL build quality of the era. Due to the USA threat of not continuing to import them unless the gearbox was changed along with the back axle, the quality did begin to improve by 1978 but it probably did not help that the cars production location was moved 3 times during its production run. The TR8 was better and even more so when EFI was finally fitted to both the late TR7s and most of the 50 state TR8s by 1981. As to how these cars drove, they did excel and had factory conveniences like AC and on the 8, power steering. Sad that they were not more successful from the start.
I had a '76 TR7. Not only did it have poor build quality, it used unreliable components. By 1980, I had a fire that started in the wiring harness, a failed fuel pump, a failed headlight mechanism, a failed ignition, two failed Lucas (Prince of Darkness) rectifiers in the alternator, a failed air (smog) pump, a failed wheel bearing, and a clutch that fragged. Many of these failures left me stranded on the side of the road and I was once even stranded on the freeway in the middle of rush hour in the middle lane.
I couldn't keep it running for more than a month or two at a time. So I traded it in on a new car. A year later I drove past it broken down on the side of the road with smoke coming out from under the hood (bonnet). I almost stopped to help, but I was afraid that the new owner might do me harm if he found out that I was the previous owner. It was the worst car I've ever owned, by far.
Nice car, and where did you get the thumbnail pic from? Awesome photo
I had a second hand blue old coupe which I purchased cheap around 1990, but within 6 months I needed to change the diff, so at the same time I also replaced the gearbox to a five speed box from a rover and the car came alive, and a much nicer ride. I fitted a remote controlled alarm that I connected to the headlights instead of hazzard lights, that would make the headlights blink popping up and down, great fun. It was a fun car to drive (with the 5 speed gearbox at least), and we enjoyed every monment whilst it lasted. It failed MOT a few years later due to rust and was scraped after sitting in a friends garage for another couple of years. Great memories, but a lot of work keeping it going.
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.
As an example of what went wrong with the British car industry, this sums it up nicely.
My parents bought me a 77 in 86. It never did run right, something about the choke system. The passenger headlight had to be raised manually. Rusted quickly being in Minnesota. I hung on to it for decades then brought it to the scrap yard.
Anxious to read the comments, but fascinated to learn the back story. On this side of the pond, the tarnish began with dash light rheostats melting dashboards, undersize front brake pads on interminable backorder, head gaskets galore, and 4sp gearboxes filled with gravel. Great to see the rally car shots, and Ken Slagle beating on the best TR's ever built: his.
I know the TR7 was a bit of a poke. My Dad built them in the Triumph factory located in Torrington Ave, Coventry. He was made redundant after the factory closed and managed to buy one in 1984. Because he worked in the rectification section, he knew the TR series cars inside and out. It took him 8 months to get the one he had 100% pin perfect. Several dealers gave him big offers that he refused. That car is now in the huge Coventry Motor Museum after he donated it in 1998.
The crying is a shame about the various British car brands (Morris, MG, Rover, Land Rover, Jaguar, Triumph, Riley, and Wolseley) that were merged by the Labour government. BL wiped out the entire management and quality leaders when it fired them and hired Ford Executives. They didn't care a damn about a series of companies that up to that point had different cultures and different styles of design. They tried making BL another mini Ford and that wouldn't work in the UK. I was born and bred in Coventry, my entire family were employed in one of the many factories and component manufacturers located there. They were all apprenticed tradesmen. As a kid, you knew you had a range of companies you could get a proper apprenticeship upon leaving school.
The great names within the city are all gone now. The blame has to lay with the Labour government at the time let the unions destroy a city full of industry. Names that were once in the city were famous the world over, such as Jaguar, Armstrong Siddeley, Hawker, Alvis, Hillman, Chrysler, Triumph, Singer, Humber, Lanchester, Rover, Rootes, Standard, Hillman, Chrysler, Peugeot, Daimler, Rover, Standard, Siddeley, Riley, Wickmans, Webster and Bennett, Matrix Churchill, Alfred Herbert, GEC, Massey Fergusson, Lucas Industries, AVRO, Rolls Royce, Rudge Whitworth, Climax, Courtaulds and Lea-Francis, are mostly gone. Although Jaguar, London Taxis and Peugeot are still in the City. Newer, high-tech and science-led industries are the fastest growing in a City that has 3 Universities.
Surprised that you hadn't mentioned the,up stairs, down stairs, management that came along with the merger.
I remember seeing these in the U.S., and I thought they were pretty cool. However, I ended up getting a Fiat X19 instead.
How did that turn out? I almost bought one (beautiful in yellow) from a car lot in San Diego when I got out of Navy bootcamp in 1980. They offered me a test drive and it wouldn't start so I walked away. (edit to add when I was a kid I saw a road test comparison of four mid engine sports cars, X19, Dino, 914, and iirc a Lotus Europa. For the rest of my life I've wanted any one of those four. At this point I think my only hope would be a restorable 914).
@@kraig7777 It was my favorite car I owned. I hope to have another one day, but they are worth quite a bit more now. Oh, I also came close to getting a 914, but I was short a couple hundred dollars, and the owner didn't want come down. haha
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 owned a '77 TR7 Coupe in British Racing Green ---- Loved it ------ With a 3.89:1 rear gear ratio I could jump most of the competition off the light.
I sat in a TR7 at the 1975 Earls Court motor show aged 15 . Finally got a convertible in 1985, a 1981 Solihull in Oporto metallic. Great fun for 15 years till I took it off the road in 2000 because I was skint! Sold as a non runner in 2008 , since converted to 4.6 V8 I believe. TYJ677X I still miss you 😢.
My first real job was at a Triumph/Fiat/VW dealer while still in high school.
I was hired to work in the VW part of the shop but soon after I started there one of only two guys who worked on Triumphs quit so they too ended up being my problem. Beginning with completing an engine job on one that the guy who quit had torn apart.
The one thing I remember most about the TR7 was how many we had come in with blown headgaskets, coolant leaks, water leaks, and electrical issues.
The TR6 however was a good car, as was the Spitfire and GT6. I drove a TR6 for a few years myself, partly at the insistence of the owner there. To his credit, he sold me a monty clean one in green for almost nothing at the time.
Looking back, I really wish I had kept the TR6, but I never wanted to own or drive a TR7, not then, not now. I sold the TR6 when rust started to get the better of it after about 8 years or so of it being my daily driver to work.
During 1976 to 1979 I was employed as part of a team of 4 trainee sales staff selling the whole of the range of cars and vans for a Leyland Cars distributors. We had a great team but a disastrous service department, and considering all the unfortunate problems we had with the cars along with the flack the cars received off the critics, I still maintained a great loyalty and love towards them. Our TR7 demonstrators were totally reliable and I remember the 4 speed being quicker than the 5 speed. It's just a shame it was not a 2 + 2 as we would have been able to sell more of them. I used to follow them on the RAC rallies and the sound of the V8's was just magic. Considering how big BL had become I was deeply saddened when it eventually fell apart. At least I have the great memories of when I was selling them.
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.
@@flybobbie1449 All the Dallas characters were best known for Driving Mercedes-Benz : JR with his succession of S-Class ( W116 , W126 and W140 ) ; Sue-Ellen had S-Classes , SLs and W123s ; Bobby for his Red R107SL as well as Pamela having one , in addition to her W123 estate . One of the minor characters had a TR7 and Fiat X-1/9 but they did not feature in many episodes . The product placement worked well for Mercedes-Benz as many people aspired to both the cars and the lifestyle . No amount of product placement though will sell bad cars .
@@derekheeps1244 Pammy had a soft top TR7.
Purdey in one scene is seen getting out of an aircraft. We later operated that aircraft at out club late 80's. I flew it for a scene in tv series Boon. Was later written off when flown into a hill.
Wasn’t a fan of the tr7 in the day but now every time I look at it I see a great sleek shape that oozes 80”s style but can pull it off today
I had a TR7 it was a nice car to drive but mine had the usual '7 problems, radiator, wiring harness and cylinder head,the latter prompted the sale. I always thought the front looked great but the designers seemed to run out of enthusiasm by the time they reached the rear. I have a mate who owns 2 TR8 rally cars (hi Terry) very potent machines, the TR7 project should have lived a lot longer.
A TR7 was my first car after passing my test in the early 1990’s. I had it for 5 years. Classic car insurance, brilliant for a skint student. Loved it.
Great video, I remember one of the rally cars featured after restoration in 80's /early 90's in ,I think, pratical classics.
I bought an '80 TR7 off of the showroom floor in Durham, NC, and used it as a daily driver for four years before wrecking it. Much like my earlier Spitfire it was a mechanical challenge, but great fun to drive. I wish I still had one.
In 1982 I lodged in the Mount pleasant area of Swansea. My landlord used to go to the Rock & Fountain pub in Mumbles with the couple next door, who owned TR7. They sat inside. He travelled in the boot! I was gobsmacked when I first witnessed this.
I remember the commercials, and being in junior high, my friends and I thought it was a really cool car. But as soon as the commercials appeared, they disappeared just as fast. To my recollection, I've never seen a TR7 in the flesh
Thanks for this interesting but very sad story! I remember back in the 80ies my father had a TR7 drophead in a kind of bronze metallic (don't know the exact name of the colour). I just loved this car! Here in Austria british cars have always been quite rare and the rest of my family drove Volkswagen Beetle, Golf and other boring cars like that, but for my father the Triumph was part of his lifestyle: I still remember driving around in the open car, my father smoking his John Player's No6 and me trying to fish a candy out of the can of Smith&Kendon's Travelsweets, that he always had in the centre console 🙂 Oh yes, those were the days... 😉
Launched when I was in junior school. I wanted one so badly when I gre up. The closest I got was a spin in one that my cousin bought off my mums hasband at the time. It was The2.0 L one in British racing green. Beige check uphostery. It really suited her, and she loved it. Unfortunately she only drove it 5 times before she was killed in her boyfreinds clapped out mini in a head on collision. RIP Claire, I will always remember that ride.
I’ve had two TR’s. One automatic fhc, and a convertible. Loved them both. Would definitely have another if the right one came along.
I had a soft top one and it drove superbly just body work problems , but it was lovely to drive .
Loved seeing these as a lad. They looked so futuristic.
I was a mechanic in America back then, and we loved/hated working on these. We loved them because the shoddy build quality and horrible engineering meant we got to make money repairing them, but hated them because Triumph didn’t set up a decent parts supply infrastructure in the US, so ordering even the simplest of parts, such as a thermostat, would take six to eight weeks.
The TR series was amazing. A affordable fun sports car for the masses. I have a 1967 TR5. Thats a TR4a Body with the Lucus fuel injection Straight 6 which was used n the TR6. The TR7 could have been amazing without the incompetent management of Leyland, the beginning of the complete decline of the British car and motorcycle industry. I still think the TR7 its an iconic looking car. Great vid.
Great video. I would have appreciated one or two hints towards Triumph Motorcycles. Was this a very different company, or what happened around the Bonneville platform during this time?
A major factor in MG’s and Triumph’s lagging desirability is their lack of technological advancement including the live axle rear suspension as you mentioned, as well as continuing their over head valve design instead of going for a higher tech and higher power over head cam design.
I had a TR7 and I loved it.
Great job and interesting of the car that could of one great tr cars good job Tom keep it up
Thanks, will do!
I've owned a Triumph GT6 for 40+ years, back in the day a good friend had a TR7.
We had many MANY "friendly" competitions. While the GT6 had a few upgrades ( better carbs, a header, and other bits and bobs ).
The GT6 outperformed the TR7 in ALL ways, in fact I MUCH preferred the GT6; I drove both cars often.
Over the years I upgraded to a 5 speed, and a vastly improved rear suspension, the GT6 is now a VASTLY superior car to the TR7.
That being said, the TR7 looks GREAT, and I've sure with proper development the car would have been a winner.
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!
Well a friend dad bought him one in high school. It had massive wiring issues . It was in the shop more than on the road for nearly 6 months. It wasn’t a powerhouse but a fun and sporty looking car to drive.
The wedge shape was already in production with the Lotus Esprit
The TR7 was a good looking body but Lancia Stratos was a great looking 'wedge style' body....There was also the wedge shaped TVR 280i which looked great.
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.)
I had one back in the early 80's when I was stationed at Bentwaters. The car did not even make it home on the day I bought it. Head gasket let go, a common thing I learned. Also the seller had the same issue and the unit had a warped head the seller hidden by using two head gaskets. The car sat for weeks until we dropped a dolomite sprint engine in it (Half a stag engine mostly). The car was awesome at that point but I had to leave it in England when I left.
I knew of one that caught fire and burnt to the ground from just daily driving. Now there's a lasting impression.
I remember as kids, my brother and I getting very excited at every sighting of a 7 on their release to the streets, calling out in the same manner as for an ice cream van. Still a great looker today, they were a lot more futuristic then.
I lhave had a few TR7s from early 76 to 1982 - and i really loved driving them they were gorgeous cars to drive - would gladly have another one thats for sure
This video overlooks that fact that British entry into the EEC involved negotiation currency conversion rates. the French had reduced the value of the Franc to increase exports throughout Europe successfully, but Britain was trying to maximize the value of the Pound during these negotiations. The result was that British exports to the USA increased in price and became less competitive. When BL tried to reduce labor costs to bring export prices down the unions went on strike, not realizing that with over 7000 unsold export TR7s sitting in fields, BL didn't need them back at work so a stalemate ensued.
The incompetence of the British government of the time killed the British auto industry, not the unions.
BTW, I have owned my 1980 TR7 Spider since 1982. It's a great car, once I literally threw away the anemic California spec motor in replaced it with a perfectly reliable Buick V6 in 1983. I swear that BL executive management couldn't organize a booze up in a brewery and The Macmillan and Heath governments were too focused on Europe to see what was happening in the USA.
It really was a stunning design when it was launched, I remember seeing one in 75 and admiring the tartan seats and pop up headlight 😂
I got an Inca yellow TR7 in August 78; it was my first new car. At that time TR7s, along with Spitfires, MGBs, Midgets, and I guess many other BL models were being sold off with huge discounts. As a 20 year old chap, the feeling of driving a bright yellow sports car was fantastic. BUT not as fantastic as the feeling of disappointment every time it went back to the dealer for yet more warranty work ..... and it spent many long periods sitting in their workshops. Indeed, I must have driven the garage's courtesy Morris Marina as much as the TR7 over the first year or so. (Pay for a TR7, drive a Marina - not a great marketing strategy!)
The huge list of mechanical and electrical woes was overshadowed by the catastrophic problems with the bodywork. Yes, it had two total resprays and many, many paint repairs on the joins between panels. Paint simply wouldn't stick to the paste used to fill the body seams, and rust would appear a few weeks after every paint application. Oh dear!
I loved my TR7, and hated it, and didn't get to drive it too much before I eventually sold it for not very much money.
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.
Great video. Always had a soft spot for these as a child growing up in the 70’s. In my opinion, the British Leyland merger should not have taken place. There was too much in-house rivalry and no singing from the same hymn sheet. The Unions and British Factory Worker ethic have ruined the whole of the British Car Industry. Management who were fond of cutting corners to save money, would give the pubic a compromised product. There are so many factors to blame for the failure of the TR7. First of which, it should have been launched with the 16valve Dolomite Sprint engine.
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🎉
A friend had one. He was driving at 60mph and was approaching a left hand bend. When he applied the brakes, they failed completely and he went through a stone wall. The reason for the brake failure? The discs separated from the rotors!
I was a huge fan of the TR7 as a boy. I loved the shape, those huge bumpers, the pop up headlights and the brightly coloured check seats and how far away the bottom of the windscreen was. I was lucky enough to get to sit in one on many occasions because my dad had an SD1 so we were spending a lot of time at the BL dealers.