Triumph Stag E-Book

Matthew Vale

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 211

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The Triumph Stag was a two-door, four-seat, luxury touring car, designed to be Triumph's flagship model for the 1970s. Styled by prolific designer Giovanni Michelotti, and engineered by Harry Webster and Spen King, the Stag had no direct competitors throughout its production life and was the blueprint for the many four-seat convertibles on the market today. It was in production from 1970 through to 1977, but suffered from a lack of development and gained a reputation for engine problems caused by poor cooling. Triumph Stag - An Enthusiast's Guide explores the history, design and development of the car, taking a special look at the Stag's unique Triumph V8 engine - and how Stag owners today have largely solved the cooling problems. It also covers owners' experiences, specialist modifications and improvements, and the car clubs that help the Stag remain one of the most popular classic cars in the UK. Superbly illustrated with 121 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

Triumph Stag

An Enthusiast’s Guide

Matthew Vale

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2014 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR 

www.crowood.com 

This e-book first published in 2014 

© Matthew Vale 2014 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 736 6 

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRIUMPH STAG

CHAPTER 2

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE STAG

CHAPTER 3

THE STAG’S HEART – THE TRIUMPH 3-LITRE V8

CHAPTER 4

THE STAG IN PRODUCTION

CHAPTER 5

OWNING AND RUNNING

Stag Clubs

Bibliography

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The inclusion of owner’s experiences is an important part of all my books, so many thanks are due to Adrian Planterose, Steve Pick and Andy Paterson for access to their cars and allowing me to write about their experiences of running a Stag. I would like to thank and acknowledge the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust for their help and assistance in producing this book, especially in the provision of original photographs of the Stag prototypes and personalities associated with the Stag, and with granting access to the original production records to help with the author’s research. Further details of the Trust can be found at: www.heritage-motorcentre.co.uk.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge the British Airways Heritage Collection for the use of the Stag at Brands Hatch picture. Further details for the heritage collection can be found at: www.britishairways.com/travel/museum-collection/public/en.gb.

I would also like to thank and acknowledge Martin Stevenson from the Stag Owners Club Forum for the pictures of the Stag fastback prototype. Tony Hart, Stag expert and founder of the Stag Owners Club reviewed my short piece on him. Finally I want to thank my wife Julia and daughter Elizabeth for putting up with me writing another book, and having another old clunker parked up on my drive!

© BMIHT – All publicity material and photographs originally produced for/by the British Leyland Motor Corporation, British Leyland Ltd and Rover Group including all its subsidiary companies is the copyright of the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust and is reproduced in this publication with their permission. Permission to use images does not imply the assignment of copyright, and anyone wishing to re-use this material should contact BMIHT for permission to do so.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRIUMPH STAG

INTRODUCTION

The Triumph Stag was launched to the world in June 1970 at a time of great turmoil in its parent company, and represented an innovative modern take on a type of car, the four-seat open tourer, which had largely been ignored in the austerity-obsessed post-World War Two markets. At that time Triumph had a reputation for producing quality sports cars and sporting saloons which offered more style, performance and class but cost a bit more than the mass market rivals; the Stag was a natural Triumph product, offering a format and a balance of performance, luxury and value for money that no other car on the market could match.

At the time, Triumph’s sports car range comprised the open topped, two-seat, hairy-chested TR6 and the smaller and softer Spitfire, while the quality saloons with a sporting edge comprised the small 1300 and 1500 (eventually to become the Dolomite) and the large and prestigious 2000, along with the last few Heralds. The Stag was an up-market four-seater convertible, powered by a new modern V8 engine, and was a neat fit between the saloon and sports car ranges. It could be viewed as either a sporting coupé version of the saloons, or as a more refined and comfortable extension to the sports car range, and was aimed squarely at the Grand Tourer market, which, at the time, was fulfilled only by expensive and exclusive premium brands. As such it was a niche market offering, with its sporting image, excellent performance, hood and removable hardtop and four reasonably sized seats.

Triumph’s marketing people felt it would gain sales from saloon drivers who no longer needed the convenience of a four-door, and fancied something sportier but not too sporting, and would also be attractive to younger sports car enthusiasts with small families who needed more space than a TR6, but didn’t want to get a family saloon.

In the event, while both classes of customer were buyers, the Stag also appealed as a sporting coupé with the benefit of a well fitting hardtop for civilized winter driving. At a stretch it could also be considered as a Herald Convertible replacement, albeit at a significantly higher price; finally, to quote contemporary Triumph publicity material it was also marketed as a ‘car for the lady at home’. All in all, while it was a niche market product, the Stag fitted well into the Triumph range at its introduction in 1970 and was aimed at a surprisingly wide range of customers.

The Stag was launched to the press in both the USA and UK in the summer of 1970, with launch reports in the British weekly magazines Autocar (11 June) and Motor (10 June) and the August edition of the American monthly Road & Track. Described as a high performance luxury grand tourer by Triumph, the press’s reaction to the Stag was universally favourable. Comparisons were made to the Mercedes and Alfa Romeo tourers, which seemed to be the only rivals of the time and the Stag’s significantly lower purchase price of about £2000 was universally praised.

The Triumph Stag was styled by Italian maestro Michelotti. This is an early Mark 1 car, with steel wheels.

Autocar magazine summed up the Stag as follows: ‘It was not a replacement for anything and falls into the middle of a range already well-endowed with sporting vehicles. If anything it is a classic gap-filler in the Triumph tradition, without any direct competition.’

The magazine also identified the Stag as filling the gap in the Leyland range between the MGB and the E-Type Jaguar, and that the Stag actually appeared to be a: ‘Genuine example of that rare breed the GT Car’.

The magazine’s review of the Stag showed that it met the design brief to be a sophisticated touring car. All in all the Stag got a favourable reception from the press on its launch. While production started in February 1970, deliveries to the public began in the latter half of 1970, but it took a while for production to get into its stride, with only seventy-nine cars produced before June, and just over 740 cars being produced by December, so long waiting lists were the name of the game for much of 1970.

The Stag evolved little through its relatively short production life. This Mark II car has non-standard alloy wheels.

Following its UK launch the Stag was formally put on sale in the USA in the summer of 1971. On its launch the Stag received an enthusiastic response from the press, and Triumph had high hopes for the car, planning on some 12,000 sales per year, with the USA perceived to be a major market. In the event, sales were disappointing. In the first couple of years of production sales climbed from just over 3,000 in 1970-71, with the Stag’s best year being 1973 with over 5,000 units sold. From there sales declined until the car was discontinued in 1977 when fewer than 2,000 cars were produced. In total there were just fewer than 26,000 Stags produced, some 18,000 for the home market and 8,000 for the export (including the USA) markets.

The Stag’s launch date of June 1970 was well into the normal Triumph sales cycle, so at the time the Stag had its own dedicated sixteen-page colour brochure, and did not feature in the range of brochures that Triumph had published in the last part of 1969 for its 1970 range. The Stag was presented in the Triumph whole range brochures from 1971 through to 1977, with separate Stag-specific brochures also being produced for 1973 and 1977.

This pair of Mark II Stags shows the styling of the hood and hardtop.

The front view of the Stag exposes its neat Italian styling. Note the parallelogram mechanism on the driver’s side windscreen wiper.

THE COMPANY – TRIUMPH

Triumph was started in Coventry, England by German-born Siegfried Bettmann in 1885, and was set up initially as an import-export company with interests in re-selling pedal cycles and sewing machines. With his eye firmly on export markets, in 1886 Bettmann chose the name Triumph for his young company as it had a similar meaning and spelling in France and Germany, two of his biggest proposed markets.

In 1887, Bettmann formed a partnership with Mauritz Johann Schulte, and formed the Triumph Cycle Co, which started to manufacture its own pedal cycles in Coventry. The company went on to manufacture its own motorcycles in 1902, based in Priory Street in the centre of Coventry. During World War One, Triumph supplied some 30,000 motorbikes to the allied forces, and their performance and reliability gained them the nickname of the ‘Trusty Triumph’. After the First World War, Triumph continued to expand and in 1921 bought the Dawson Car Company of Clay Lane, Stoke, on the north-east outskirts of Coventry.

Between 1919 and 1921 Dawson had produced three models of a 12bhp light car in two-seat, four-seat and cabriolet forms. These were all powered by a relatively advanced 1795cc overhead cam 4-cylinder engine but only about sixty-five were produced. Triumph did not continue to produce the Dawson car, but used the Dawson premises to manufacture their own car, the Triumph 10/20. This car was introduced in 1923 and used a Triumph-built 1393cc 4-cylinder side valve engine unit which was designed by Lea Francis, with Triumph paying a royalty to Lea Francis for each one produced.

The 10/20 had a three-speed (and reverse) gearbox and was available in five body styles, a three-seat All Weather Tourer, a Sports, a four-door saloon, a three-door saloon and a four-door tourer. These cars were well received and gave Triumph a good name for themselves in the car market.

The 10/20 was followed by the 13/35 in 1924, which had a 13bhp 1873cc 4-cylinder side valve engine and was essentially a development of the 10/20 with a wider track and longer wheelbase. The 13/35 came in two body styles, a five-seat tourer or a four-seat saloon and was the first UK produced car to be equipped with hydraulic brakes. Triumph ceased production of both the 10/20 and the 13/35 in 1926, with the introduction of the Fifteen. This was the same size as the 13/35 but had a 2169cc 14.9 horsepower, 4-cylinder, side valve engine and three-speed gearbox.

The Fifteen came in five body styles (a three or five-seat tourer, two styles of coach built saloon and a fabric bodied four-door tourer). The Fifteen was produced until 1930, when Triumph changed its name to the Triumph Motor Company. However, Triumph was also tapping into the small car market, and the Super Seven, a lightweight Austin Seven competitor with a 7.9bhp, 832cc 4-cylinder, side valve engine, was extremely successful with over 31,000 produced between 1927 and 1932. It came in a myriad of body styles and was replaced by the Super Eight, which offered a four-speed gearbox option and was produced from 1932 to 1934.

At the same time Triumph did not abandon the larger car market, and started to introduce more models leading to a wide and bewildering range of cars produced during the 1930s. Triumph introduced the Southern Cross four-seat tourer and sports models in 1932. These models both had a 4-cylinder engine with overhead inlet valves and side exhaust valves, and had a four-speed gearbox as standard, with the tourer engine displacing 1018cc and the sports engine displacing 1122cc.

Confusingly Triumph then introduced their sporting Gloria model range for 1933, which comprised a range of saloons, coupés, sports cars and drophead coupés. These were powered by 4 or 6-cylinder engines which were designed by Coventry Climax but manufactured by Triumph. The engines both featured overhead inlet and side exhaust valves, and the 4-cylinder unit displaced 1087cc, while the 6-cylinder unit displaced 1476cc and set the trend for Triumph to use small capacity 6-cylinder units. In 1934 the Gloria’s 4-cylinder engine capacity was increased to 1232cc and the 6-cylinder engine’s capacity grew to 1991cc.

In 1934 Triumph made a surprising departure from its usual 4-cylinder sporting saloons by building the Dolomite 8. At this time, the famous engineer Donald Healey was appointed Experimental Manager, and the Dolomite 8 was designed and produced for Donald Healey to compete in the 1935 Monte Carlo Rally. The car had a 1990cc double overhead cam supercharged straight-eight engine, which was based on the Alfa Romeo 2300cc unit housed in a Triumph designed chassis, with a four-speed pre-selector gearbox. It appears that Triumph produced around six complete engines and three chassis, and after a crash in the 1935 rally when the car hit a train in Denmark, it came a respectable eighth place in the 1936 Monte Carlo Rally and was the highest placed British car.

The 4-cylinder Coventry Climax designed engine was replaced by a Triumph designed overhead valve, 4-cylinder unit in 1936 which, in 1496cc form, powered the Gloria 1.5 Saloon and the Gloria Fourteen Six-Light saloon. The 4-cylinder engine was also produced in 1767cc form, and a new Triumph designed 6-cylinder overhead valve unit of 1991cc was also introduced at the same time. Both units were used to power the new Vitesse range of sporting saloons produced between 1936 and 1938, as well as the new Dolomite range of sports saloons and roadsters, which bore no resemblance to and shared no components with the Dolomite 8, and were produced between 1936 and 1940.

To add to their vast range of models, Triumph also produced the Southern Cross Speed model and Sports Saloon between 1933 and 1934, which were based on the old Southern Cross models but used the new Coventry Climax designed 1087cc engine to give performance, and presumably to use up left over parts from the Southern Cross production. The final Triumph model produced before the start of World War Two was the Twelve Saloon, which was powered by the 1496cc variant of the 4 Triumph overhead valve engine.

The 1930s Depression put paid to many established companies, and in the mid-1930s the Triumph Motor Company was in trouble. Jack Sangster, then owner of Ariel motorcycles, heard about Triumph’s problems and bought the motorcycle part of the business, including the Priory Street factory, forming the Triumph Engineering Co. Ltd in 1936; meanwhile the car part of the business struggled on with its unwieldy and wide range of vehicles, which must have been expensive to produce and difficult to manage. In July 1939 the Triumph Motor Company went into receivership and the company assets were bought by T. W. Ward, a company with extensive engineering interests and while car production continued until 1940, most production capability was directed to the war effort from 1939.

The second use of the Triumph Dolomite name was a pre-war sporting saloon car with a distinctive ’Waterfall’ grill. Powered by a 4-cylinder engine, it was produced between 1936 and 1940.

STAG BROCHURES

In its lifetime the Stag was marketed using general brochures covering the whole of the Triumph range, and in specific brochures dedicated to the car.

There were four UK-market Stag-specific brochures produced, three A4-sized, colour, multi-page and one A5 format, black and white version. Of the three A4-sized brochures the first was produced for the Stag’s launch in the summer of 1970, the second produced in 1973, and the third produced in September 1976. All three brochures were produced in full colour and had twenty-four pages in the first version, and twelve pages in the second and third versions, including the covers. The black and white brochure was in A5 format, and had four ‘pages’ and used the photography from the original Stag 1970 brochure. This was presumably cheaper than the A4 colour brochures and was probably aimed at the ‘schoolboy’ brochure collector!

Examination of the first two colour brochures shows that there was a lot of reuse between the two, and some clever airbrushing used to alter some of the pictures to turn the original press car’s number plate, RRW 97H (this car is the first production model, commission number LD1 and is now restored and still on the road at the time of writing) into RRW 97L – a car notionally two years younger.

The British car registration system at the time had a year relevant suffix to the registration number (in this case ‘H’ for 1969-1970, and ‘L’ for 1971-1972) and it was a big status symbol for an owner to have this year’s car with the current age related letter, so obviously Triumph didn’t want the brochure for its top of the range car to feature a model that was two years old. Even more striking is that the RRW 97H has a bright red interior and seats of the early pattern in various shots in the brochure, including the famous shots of the car on the quayside in Monaco, while RRW 97L, in several shots taken in the same places has a brown interior and ‘Mark II’ style seats.

The first Stag brochure featured pictures of the car making its way through France to Monte Carlo: here the car is in the mountains braving the snow.

The Stag got the front cover on Triumph’s 1971 All Models brochure. The pictures were reused from the first Stag brochure.

Triumph continued to re-use pictures taken from the first brochure for the subsequent one issued in 1973. The 1970 registration number of the car (‘H’) is a giveaway.

Presumably the marketing budget couldn’t stretch to another jolly down to the south of France and Monaco when the talented photographers could do the job in house! RRW 97H also appeared in the 1971 Triumph Range brochure in its original form with red interior, and it was used for the cover of the brochure as well.

For the US market, BL’s American subsidiary produced two Stag-specific brochures, both printed in the USA. The first was a single page A4 flyer, issued in late 1971, with a full size colour picture of a Jasmine Yellow US specification Stag with wire wheels and technical details on the back. The actual car used was LD2, the second car off the production line. The second brochure, issued in late 1972 for the 1973 season, was a more substantial affair. It was larger than A4 format (10 x 10in, 252 x 252mm) and had twelve pages including the covers. Produced in full colour it featured Sienna Brown and Pimento Red cars equipped with alloy wheels and posed in a field with a suitably upmarket couple and in one shot a Polo pony and rider – obviously going to the up-market customer. In a slightly bizarre twist, there were two pages of detailed shots which included the female model sitting in the car’s open boot...

The USA got their own brochure in late 1972, and featured a brown Stag with the roof down and a red Stag with hardtop.

In addition the US distributors issued a single page A4 flyer featuring a cut away diagram of the V8 on one side, and a brief technical description – which references the home market nylon bladed cooling fan, while the first US Stags had metal fans.

The last brochure that was dedicated to the Stag was produced in September 1976, and was a glossy, full colour, sixteen-page affair. British Leyland really pushed the boat out with this one, as it featured a red Mark II Stag in various poses, including helicopters, medieval knights on horseback and real deer in a county park setting.

Obviously produced to try to give the Stag sales a boost, the brochure was a fitting finale to the Stag, production of which ended in June 1977.

The 1972 US brochure gave lots of detail shots of the car. The model sitting in the car’s boot was an unusual way of demonstrating its capacity...

The final Stag-specific brochure appeared in 1976, and featured the car in the deer park of a stately home.

SIR DONALD STOKES AND SIR GEORGE HARRIMAN

Donald Stokes was made the Managing Director of the Leyland Motor Company in 1963, and remained at the helm of Leyland and the new British Leyland company when it was formed in 1968. Stokes was born in Plymouth, Devon in the UK in 1914 and was educated at the prestigious Blundell’s school in Tiverton. Leaving school at sixteen, he took an engineering apprenticeship at Leyland in 1930, the company that he was destined to spend his working life at, apart from his war service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. At Leyland he served in various departments and showed himself to be a talented salesman by orchestrating and managing Leyland’s successful export drive, which included selling double decker buses to Cuba and other Caribbean countries in the 1950s.

This talent was appreciated and he became Managing Director in 1963. He oversaw Leyland’s success in the mid to late 1960s, and was pivotal in the merger with British Motor Holdings in 1968 to form the British Leyland Motor Corporation. As Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of BLMC (he became Chairman in September 1968 when Sir George Harriman stood down) he had an unenviable task to integrate the two companies, get to grips with the fundamental lack of profitability of the former BMH companies and fight off the increasing competition from overseas.

The sheer enormity of the job ground him down, and in 1973 he appointed John Barber as Managing Director, retaining his title of Chief Executive. His plans for expansion of the business soaked up capital and the oil crisis, inflation and industrial unrest meant he had to go cap-in-hand to the new Labour government in 1974 for a bail-out. While the Government offered a £100 million cash injection, it also instigated an inquiry into the company which resulted in Stokes being appointed President of the company but having very little actual power.

He left the company board in 1979 and was appointed to the boards of some subsidiaries of the Lonrho group, and also took an interest in local radio. Stokes was made a life peer in 1969 by the Wilson Government, becoming Lord Stokes and died in July 2008, aged ninety-four.

George Harriman was the chairman of British Motor Holdings, and retained that post after the creation of the BLMC, the organization that took the Stag into production. Harriman was born in 1908, and joined Morris Motors Hotchkiss works as an apprentice in 1923. He became assistant works superintendent at Morris in Cowley, near Oxford in 1938, and moved to Austin, based in Longbridge, just south of Birmingham in 1940 where he became a Director in 1945.

This historic image from January 1968 shows Sir George Harriman of British Motor Holdings (left) shaking hands with Sir Donald Stokes of Leyland Motor Corporation (right) at the press conference to announce the merger of the two companies.

The merger of Austin and Morris resulted in the formation of the British Motor Corporation (BMC) in 1952, which included the MG, Riley and Wolseley names and became infamous for Badge Engineering – the practice of taking one model of car and changing the badges and trim to make apparently different makes of car. Harriman was appointed Managing Director of BMC in 1956, and became Chairman in 1961 after Leonard Lord’s retirement.

BMC, which was renamed British Motor Holdings (BMH) after taking over Jaguar in December 1966, was a mass market car producer competing with Ford and Vauxhall, and was born mainly out of the merger of Austin and Morris in 1952. The company had a large and complex range of models, many of which competed for the same market position along with antiquated and numerous factories. Little effort had been expended on trying to rationalize the various elements of the company, and new car models still bore the Austin and Morris badges.

Even worse, the dealer network had not been rationalized, so most towns had Austin and Morris showrooms which were usually more intent on gaining sales from their opposite number than fighting the actual competitors of Ford and Vauxhall. Harriman should have sorted the mess out but did not, and this resulted in the company becoming increasingly unprofitable and enabled the smaller Leyland Motor Company to be the senior partner in the merger that created the British Leyland Motor Company. Harriman was allowed to stay on as chairman of BLMC after the merger but resigned in September 1968. Harriman died on 29 May 1973.

STANDARD TRIUMPH

In 1944 the remains of the Triumph Motor Company were sold by T. W. Ward to the Standard Motor Company, but T. W. Ward retained the old Dawson Motors site and the production lines were transferred to Standard’s factory at Canley on the south west of Coventry. Standard was run by the autocratic Sir John Black and his intention was to use the company, with its reputation for building good quality sporting cars, to complement the Standard range of solid but boring saloons and the Ferguson tractor business.

The first Triumph model to be produced at Canley under Standard’s ownership was the Triumph Roadster, made famous by the 1980s BBC television detective series Bergerac,