Triumph TR6 E-Book

David Knowles

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

This book tells the life story of the much-loved Triumph TR6 in unprecedented detail, bringing to life the genesis and magnificent history of one of the most-loved British sports cars of its era. Covering the design, development and manufacture of the car as well as its motorsport history, it shows how this last bastion of traditional British sports car motoring went against the grain of troubled automotive times, outstripping its predecessors in sales and popularity. Triumph TR6 - The Complete Story is dedicated to the last traditional open-topped TR sports car - one of the most-loved British sports cars of its era and will be of great interest to motoring and Triumph enthusiasts. The book gives full details of the much-loved Triumph TR6 from 1969-1976, including design, development and manufacture as well as its motorsport history.Superbly illustrated with nearly 400 colour photographs.

Leseprobe

TRIUMPH

TR6

THE COMPLETE STORY

DAVID KNOWLES

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2016 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

© David Knowles 2016

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 78500 138 3

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 TRIUMPH FROM THE BEGINNING

CHAPTER 2 BRITISH BOXER: THE TRIUMPH TR4

CHAPTER 3 SIX CYLINDERS: THE WASP STORY

CHAPTER 4 TR6: A GERMAN AFFAIR

CHAPTER 5 HEADING TOWARDS THE LAUNCH

CHAPTER 6 TRIUMPH TR6 LAUNCH

CHAPTER 7 THE TR6 IN PRODUCTION

CHAPTER 8 TR6 IN MOTOR SPORT

Appendices

Index

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The history of Triumph cars, and sports cars in particular, is a path well trodden by many capable and respected writers, some of them household names in the classic car world. It would be foolish to ignore the enormous debt of gratitude owed to those authors, as well as to the former Standard-Triumph personnel, no longer with us, whose memories they recorded and shared. Readers of my previous books will have found that I am one of those people who cannot help nosing in the side rooms and passages, rummaging for the undiscovered. I hope that you will be suitably entertained by my efforts to uncover fresh or seldom-seen material. If you learn something new in the course of reading this book, I will be happy that my mission was a success.

The list of people to thank is long. Several of those mentioned have passed away since I met and interviewed them. I hope their words are a fitting testament to their roles in the last great traditional Canley sports car:

Gary Arsenault, owner of the second-to-last TR6; John Ashford, Triumph designer; Bob Barone, photographer who recorded Paul Newman at Road Atlanta in October 1976; Werner Bärtschi, owner of the one-off Triumph TR5 ‘Ginevra’; Ray Bates, Triumph Engineering; John Bath, Triumph historian at the Triumph Razor Edge Owners’ Club; Peter Beer, owner of the featured Mimosa TR6; Alex Bianchi, owner of the featured Pimento TR6 with hardtop; David Bingham, TR6 owner, enthusiast and collector with an extraordinary collection of TR6 sales and marketing literature and a beautiful TR6; Gordon Birtwistle, Triumph Engineering; François Borzellino, creator of the ‘TR5 Passion’ website; Gary Brizendine, former TR6 race car builder; Peter Brock, automotive designer behind the TR-250K; Mick Bunker, Triumph engineer; Bob Burden, British Leyland Inc. Advertising Manager for MG and Jaguar, but also with significant input to Triumph advertising; Ivan Chermayeff, designer responsible for British Leyland stand at New York 1970; John Clancy, Triumph historian and documentary film-maker; Cheryl Clark, TR6 owner; Mike Cook, former Public Relations Manager for Standard-Triumph Inc., later BL and more recently a noted Triumph historian and author; Alan Cowan, former TR6 race mechanic; Mike Dale, former Vice President of Sales & Marketing at BL Inc. in Leonia, NJ;Jim Dittemore II, racing driver (along with his son Jim Dittemore III); Jeff Durant, current owner (2014) of the ex-Mueller/Vollmer TR6 SCCA race car; Alan Edis, former Product Planner with a key role overseeing Triumph development in the 1970s; Ian Elliott, former BL Public Relations and later BMH PR; David Fidler, Canada-based owner of early 1969 Model Year TR6; Tony Garmey, restorer of the TR250-K;Jerry Garrett, New York Times and former Associated Press reporter at the time of the Road Atlanta race in October 1976; Mike Geddes, owner of the TR5 chassis development car (X753); Gerard Ghesquiere, Belgian rallying history enthusiast; ‘Zeke’ Giesecke, friend of the late Carl Swanson (TR6 race driver), but no relation to the Karmann designer Gerhard Giesecke; Simon Goldsworthy, editor of Triumph World magazine; Alan Graham, former owner of the TR5 body development car (X755); Derek Graham, TR6 Registrar, TR Register; Rick Hall, owner of X684; Paul Harvey, owner of the beautiful TR3 Italia featured; Mike Hazelwood, present owner of the TR4A used for the TR6 mock-up; Edith Hopfinger, widow of Bernard Hopfinger; Peter Hopfinger, son of the late Bernard Hopfinger, who brokered the Standard-Triumph/Karmann deal; Richard Hunt, Triumph designer; Tony Hunter, automotive designer; Ray Innes, Triumph designer; R.K. ‘Kas’ Kastner, former Triumph Competition Manager in the USA, leading Triumph tuning expert, and author of many essential books on Triumphs in motorsport; David Keepax, Triumph designer; Chris Kennedy, photographer who recorded John McComb’s racing TR6 at Nelson Ledges in 1972; Caroline Landey, daughter of the late Bernard Hopfinger; Richard M. Langworth, Triumph historian and author; Tony Lee, Triumph Engineering; Paul Lewis, MIRA; John McComb, key member of the Group 44 Inc. race team with many notable TR6 victories; Dick McWilliams, son of Gertrude ‘Jimmy’ McWilliams and the late J. Bruce McWilliams; Chris Moore, son of the late Leslie Moore, Triumph’s Chief Stylist; John Mueller, son of the late Lee Mueller; Frank ‘Skip’ Panzarella, friend of Paul Newman and fellow race driver; Jim Pullen, owner of the featured Damson TR6; Frédéric Reydellet, French Triumph historian and author; Clive Richardson, former custodian of ‘Pig-en-ell’; Graham Robson, the world’s foremost Triumph author, also with the benefit of time served at the factory in the 1960s; Norman Rose, Triumph Engineering; Steven Rossi, Triumph author and ‘Vintage Triumph Register’ luminary; Karin Schlesiger, Karmann archivist in 2006; Ken Slagle, former Triumph racer in SCCA events; Andrew Smith, owner of the featured Saffron TR6; Lisa Stevens, Digitization Assistant at BMIHT; Angus Sutherland, owner of a Topaz TR6; Bob Tullius, Group 44 Inc. founder and racer; Bill Warner, owner since 1989 of the Group 44 Inc. TR6; Jane and Henry Weitzmann, owners of the unique Triumph ‘Fury’ prototype; Dr Timothy R. Whisler, Dean, School of Arts & Letters at Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, and author of excellent academic studies of the British car industry, many with a key relevance to the Triumph sports car story; Gerhard Wiederholl, German TR6 enthusiast and co-researcher (with Derek Graham) of the Karmann story; Dennis ‘Denny’ Wilson, former TR6 racer.

After listing everyone and stressing the importance of their help, it may seem mildly invidious to then single out a few, but there are certainly some individuals without whom this book would not have been possible in its final form. Derek Graham has been researching and writing about the TR6 for many years and it would not be overstating the case to call him the ultimate TR6 guru. When it came to researching the background to the Karmann connection, Derek’s co-conspirator was Gerhard Wiederholl. I am grateful to them both for their thorough work in establishing the true story of how the TR6 got its looks. In a similar vein, John Clancy, the irrepressibly enthusiastic creator of a whole series of excellent DVDs on various aspects of Triumph history, has been generous with his help. If there were an Academy Award for Classic Car videos, John would scoop most of the Oscars. And on the author front, the doyen of Triumph experts is undoubtedly Graham Robson, whose writing on the marque is legendary.

In North America Mike Cook has been in the enviable position of having been there, seen it and mostly done it: he worked for Triumph, wrote about it on the company payroll and then, after Triumph sports cars were no more, segued via a similar role at Jaguar into the role of archivist and historian. Mike Dale oversaw the growth of Triumph, MG and Jaguar cars in the 1970s (and went on to be President of Jaguar’s North American operations) and Bob Burden, as Advertising Manager for MG and Jaguar, oversaw many of the memorable campaigns in the same era, encompassing those for Triumphs as well as the others in his care. After BL, Burden moved into the New York City advertising world where he worked for Doyle Dane Bernbach.

I must also give special thanks to Dick McWilliams, younger son of J. Bruce and Gertrude ‘Jimmy’ McWilliams; Dick granted me access to Bruce’s copious files of papers and photos, from which I have learned a great deal – and I hope you will too. Similarly, two great stalwarts of US SCCA motor racing, R.W. ‘Kas’ Kastner and Bob Tullius, have provided constant, generous, enthusiastic help throughout this project.

In addition to named individuals, I must also pay tribute to the various clubs, archives and other bodies who collectively support the memories of the TR6. These include the Heritage Motor Museum and Archive at Gaydon, Warwickshire, the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, Hampshire, the Modern Records Centre at Warwick University, the various TR clubs, such as the UK-based TR Register and TR Drivers’ Club and, in North America, the Vintage Triumph Register. To these must be added the often remarkable (and credible) resources online, many obvious labours of love, such as those maintained by the wonderfully named ‘Temple of Triumph’ (an official chapter of the Vintage Triumph Register), whose collection of past issues of the Triumph Sports Owners’ Association Newsletters, which ran between April 1955 and 1981, is an especially valuable treasure trove.

INTRODUCTION

When it entered the limelight in 1969, the Triumph TR6 marked the culmination of the best part of two decades of evolution of classic sports cars in the greatest British tradition. Originally created as a riposte to the likes of MG and Morgan, the TR sports car had carved out a niche for itself with a loyal cadre of owners. It sometimes showed that Triumph did not have a parent with especially deep pockets, but like the plucky underdog that is so often taken to heart, the people behind the TR range proved to be nimble and clever in ways that seemed lost to some of their rivals. Many of the industry innovations of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the fitting of disc brakes, were celebrated Triumph successes. The original TR concept of 1952 was followed by the production TR2, TR3 and, almost a decade on, the TR4.

Although this book is clearly about the TR6, you will also find comprehensive coverage of the TR4, TR4A, TR5 and TR250 that preceded it, as well as the near-contemporary Stag. This is deliberate and important because some of those were only ever intended as interim models – a halfway house, if you will. This means that much of the development story of the TR6 is also that of the TR5 and TR250, and some of the key protagonists in the story are also the same. The TR5/TR250 was only in production for the short time it took for the TR6 to evolve into the best-selling TR sports car until it was overtaken by a very different Triumph, the TR7. The Triumph Stag, meanwhile, was an entirely new project that came out of left field and unquestionably diverted resources and investment from the mainstream sports car programme.

A particular mention is also warranted here for the extensive motor sports chapter. I make no apologies for covering the North American racing history of this quintessentially British sports car in some detail. The success of the car on race tracks across the United States, at the hands of great drivers and under the management of superb, highly respected (but often underfunded) teams, was sound evidence for the truth behind the well-worn maxim: ‘race on Sunday, sell on Monday’.

In the heady days of the 1960s and 1970s sports car owners rated the prowess of their car on the track as a badge of honour. In Triumph’s case this was well earned. There is no doubt that the exploits of Kas Kastner, Bob Tullius and their fellow motor sports gladiators helped keep the lights on at Canley and Speke as long as they did, and it would be a grave injustice to fail to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to them. Besides which, the racing story of the TR6 is a stirring tale of David versus Goliath and, as you may not be surprised to learn, I am often on David’s side.

NOMENCLATURE

This is a British book by a British author, but it sets out to do proper justice to the crucially important North American parts of the story of a great English sports car, and the vital role played by the marketing and racing people in the USA, something frequently overlooked by others writing from the confines of its home country. That said, the terms used are mainly ‘British’ ones: what an American reader would think of as the ‘hood’ is described herein as a ‘bonnet’, and similarly the British ‘hood’ is what an American would think of as a top.

Another subtlety, however, comes from the naming of the car itself, born out of differing marketing conventions in the two key markets. Always referred to in Coventry as the ‘TR6’, the car was better known in Leonia, for most of its life, as the ‘TR-6’, the hyphen having similarly graced the previous generations of TR. For that reason, North American magazines and enthusiasts generally use the hyphen in the name.

Likewise, therefore, while the US Triumph enthusiast readily thought of the TR-2, TR-3, TR-3A, TR-3B, TR-4, TR-4A, TR-250 and even the GT-6, a British contemporary would not expect to see the extra character rendered in any of those names. By the mid-1970s, with the TR7 on the scene, the rules seem to have changed and even the marketing people were sometimes inconsistent by the time that the TR6 was heading for the exit ramp. Bob Burden was a key member of the US Sales and Marketing Team in Leonia, with responsibility for trade mark use locally.

My legal guide was Doug Fairhurst, my contact at our law firm, Townley Updike at the time. Doug taught me the legal principle of use, it or lose it’, i.e. use your trademarks and trade names correctly or you risk your ownership rights. As you are able to see from some of the Triumph dealer advertising kit materials, we didn’t always do that. The ‘ad mats’ or ‘slicks’ are okay – all TR6, but some of the television storyboards are identified as TR-6 although it is TR6 in the body copy. Drove me nuts, especially as we were the guilty party (although I was not Triumph advertising manager at the time)!

Even the ‘TR-250’, arguably almost as American a creation as a British one, was referred to at Coventry as the TR250. However the TR-250K, a uniquely Californian confection, has been described in this book as its American creators intended and as is only right, since nobody in Coventry seemed to take the least interest in it.

The other exception is the use of ‘GT-6+’ because this was a model name that was unique to North America; the same car was known as the GT6 Mark II in other markets.

CHAPTER ONE

TRIUMPH FROM THE BEGINNING

The origins of the Triumph car, like so many of its contemporaries, may be found around the end of the nineteenth century, a period that saw the phenomenal growth of first the bicycle and then the motorcycle industries. The man who started the long journey that eventually led to the Triumph TR6 was Bavarian by birth, which may seem slightly ironic if one bears in mind that a Bavarian company (BMW) would acquire the Triumph car marque around a hundred years later. Siegfried Bettmann (1863–1951) was born in Nuremberg but, like other adventurous contemporaries, he ventured abroad in order to make his way in the world and arrived in London in 1883, where his fluency in several languages stood him in good stead for early employment.

After a couple of dalliances working for others, he set up his own business, S. Bettmann & Co., to act as agent for a number of German sewing machine manufacturers. From sewing machines came a move to bicycles, by which time he had gained a partner and moved to Coventry, where he would settle down with an English wife. Further successes, expansion and exports followed. The Triumph motorcycle had come into being by the outbreak of the First World War and would become an important tool of the war effort, known by servicemen as the ‘Trusty Triumph’.

By this time Bettmann had become Coventry’s first foreign-born Mayor, but the prejudices of war and the crowing of a xenophobic few meant that he was effectively forced from office and had to resign several directorships including Triumph (and, as it happens, Standard, although the two companies had yet to become linked). Even so, Bettmann had become a patriot of his adopted country and, besides supporting the war effort with the motorcycles, he also helped the families of staff who fell in the war and subscribed to a memorial after hostilities had ceased.

The first Triumph car was the Triumph 10/20 two-seater of 1923, complete with a 4-cylinder engine of 1.4 litres. It was a new departure for a company already well known and respected for its motorcycles.STANDARD-TRIUMPH

Meanwhile in 1918 the Dawson Car Company had been founded in Coventry on a wave of post-war optimism by Alfred John Dawson, the former works manager of Hillman. The Dawson business foundered by 1921 and Bettmann was encouraged to acquire the Dawson premises by Colonel Sir Claude Vivian Holbrook, who had joined him at Triumph in 1919. The outcome was the first Triumph motor car, the 1.4-litre Triumph 10/20, which was launched with an advertisement in The Times.

Production was significantly increased in 1927 when the Triumph Super 7 was introduced, selling well throughout its production life to 1934. The Depression hit most of the industry in 1929 and Triumph was no exception, separating off its German subsidiary as a separate firm, Triumph-Adler, which continued to manufacture Triumph-branded motor-cycles until 1957. By 1930 Holbrook was in charge and under his direction Triumph moved upmarket to avoid cut-throat competition with the likes of Austin, Ford and Morris.

Perhaps the most dramatic pre-war Triumph from the fertile mind of designer Walter Belgrove was the controversially styled Dolomite Roadster of 1938, complete with its elaborate chrome-plated ‘waterfall’ radiator grille.STANDARD-TRIUMPH

Notable Triumphs of the period, styled by Walter Belgrove, included the Southern Cross and Gloria. Donald Healey, who later became a famous car maker in his own right, joined Triumph as Chief Engineer in 1934. Two years later cash flow problems led to the sale of the Triumph motorcycle business to Jack Sangster to become the Triumph Engineering Company and bicycle production was acquired by Coventry Bicycles; henceforward Triumph cars, motorcycles and cycles were under different ownership, even if in fond imagination many still linked them together.

Despite these drastic actions, however, Triumph suffered from the contraction of the upmarket car sector and like Riley, with whom an alliance was discussed, the business stuttered into the arms of the Official Receiver. Thomas W. Ward purchased the business and placed Healey in charge as general manager, but the business faltered again when war broke out and the Priory Street works were completely destroyed by bombing in 1940.

THE STANDARD-TRIUMPH YEARS

Shortly before the Second World War John Black commissioned Mulliners to build an SS Jaguar complete with a stylish razor-edged body modelled on that of a contemporary Rolls-Royce. Largely responsible for the design at Mulliners was Leslie Moore, who was asked after the war to effectively replicate the feat for what would become the first Standard-era Triumph, the 1946 Triumph Renown. There has been some debate about who deserves the credit for the Renown, but in his unpublished memoirs Moore makes it clear that he believes the work was mostly his own. Even so, Walter Belgrove would have been responsible for signing off the design, just as Moore would be twenty years later when he headed Triumph design.STANDARD-TRIUMPH

John Black, who was knighted in 1943, had joined the Standard Motor Company from Hillman, becoming General Manager in 1929. Black has sometimes been described as an autocratic monster, but in contrast, some who knew him have painted a different picture. While Black could be a hard taskmaster and had some fractious business relationships, he was recalled with loyal affection by his former employees as a forward-thinking strategist and, above all, a gentleman, who sought to know everyone who worked for him and always strove to improve his business. It may well be that the strained and complex elements of his personality that some witnessed, and which seem to have spilled over into some of his closer relationships, stemmed in part from his experiences in the First World War.