Triumph: The winner that never was
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The Triumph car company, like Rover, was a genuine British success story of the 1960s. From the low-point of being declared bankrupt in 1939 – and being picked up by Standard in 1944, the company had forged a successful path by the late 1960s on the back of an interesting and technically diverse range of cars.

During the Fifties, the Standard Car Company led a reasonably successful existence, with the added bonus of a lucrative tractor building operation for Ferguson shoring up the company’s profits. However, the company was still quite small compared with giants Austin and Morris and because sales volumes were nothing special, funds to develop the next generation of cars would be increasingly hard to come by. Because of this stagnation on the market, the company began seriously looking at forming an alliance with another UK carmaker – the intention of Standard’s managing director, Alick Dick was to drive the company forwards. Several potential suitors were approached; including Rover and the Rootes Group, but neither one offered a satisfactory solution to their problems.

However, the fortunes of Standard-Triumph turned rapidly downwards in 1960 – domestic sales were crippled by a budgetary credit squeeze and exports sales of the sports cars also took a turn for the worse. From the prosperous days of the Fifties, where Standard were looking to buy-out other companies, they eventually became mortally vulnerable to the predatory advances of the Lancashire-based truck-builder, Leyland. Why Leyland decided to take-over Standard-Triumph in 1961 can only be put down to one factor: their truck building business was going from strength to strength and the desire for expansion into the potentially profitable world of car manufacture proved irresistible. Within the Standard-Triumph group, certainly the latter part of the union, a young and relatively successful company, which had recently launched the successful Herald seemed the perfect bedfellow for the successful truck maker. The loser in the takeover upheavals was Standard themselves – Triumph matched the car-buying mood of the moment – Standard did not. Within a short period of time – the marque was dead, and in effect, became the first victim of the great shake-up in the industry that eventually led to the formation of BLMC in 1968.

Harry Webster played his part in the Triumph renaissance, being, as he was, responsible for the TR line of sporting convertibles – but that was the beginning: for Triumph, the planets aligned perfectly and the combination of Harry Webster and Giovanni Michelotti produced the excellent Triumph Herald, launched in 1959 – a car that proved to be exactly the right product at the right time for the company. The Herald was first conceived in April 1956 as a replacement for the Standard Eight – codenamed Zobo, the new car was unusual for being designed from the outset to be built around a backbone chassis, rather than the increasingly usual monocoque. Also, from the outset, the Standard design team decreed that the Zobo should have all-independent suspension.

The Standard Ten engine displacing 947cc was the intended power unit for the Zobo, but Harry Webster soon identified that it would not be man enough for the job of powering the heavier new car. Webster soon worked out how to increase the capacity and power of the engine – realising 1300cc, but as Webster recalled, “Alick Dick decided to go half way, to 1147cc in the first instance, and keep the 1300cc up our sleeves”.

With the format of the car’s mechanics set, the intention was for the styling to be just as unconventional. Out went Standard’s existing stylist, Walter Belgrove, following a feud with technical director Ted Grinham, and after some difficult times at the Canley styling studios, in came Giovanni Michelotti. By September 1957, the Italian was commissioned to produced proposals for the Zobo: a saloon, coupe, estate car and convertible – and within three months, just before the Christmas closedown, the first car, a coupe was presented to the board. Harry Webster recalled the event; “We got it into the styling studio and put it on the turntable. Then Alick Dick and the rest of the board turned up. Everyone thought it was superb. Afterwards, we all went down to the canteen and got gloriously drunk.” Their optimism was justified – the Herald was a success.

The Webster-Michelotti alliance would prove to be a lasting one – but in the beginning, their next car was styled internally at Triumph, used a separate chassis and the basic model was powered by a 1.6-litre engine. Initially, the make-up of the car, known as Zebu, mirrored that of the Zobo: separate chassis and advanced styling, but the first incarnation replete with reverse rake rear window was cancelled by Alick Dick because of its resemblance to the upcoming Fords Anglia and Classic. Standard’s precarious financial situation did not help either, so it was, therefore, an inevitability that the project was cancelled – only to be resurrected after the Leyland takeover in 1961. The resurrected car, nicknamed “Barb”, styled by Michelotti and enjoying monocoque construction would go on to be launched as the Triumph 2000 in October 1963.

Whilst the development of the Standard Vanguard replacement had been underway, Rover had also been working on their P6. During the Standard/Rover merger talks of 1959, it was proposed that if the merger was successful, development of these two cars could be pooled – how different the executive car market of the late ‘Sixties could have looked if the merger had proved successful. As it was, these two cars went on to pretty much create a new sector of the market between them, proving to be fierce rivals throughout their lifetime.

The 2000 was followed into production by the 1300 saloon – a clever little front wheel drive car, again clothed in a stylish Michelotti body and engineered by Harry Webster. Pitched slightly upmarket from the Herald, the Triumph 1300 immediately carved itself a handy niche in the market, offering up a compact, but luxurious package, which would prove to be popular with buyers in the UK and Europe alike. This technically interesting package would go on to live a long life – and the basic Triumph 1300 body shell would form the basis of a range of cars in later life, but as we shall see, this promising car would be passed over by the company, time and time again.

With these two sporting saloons, Triumph created an enviable reputation for themselves – and this success led to a desire to push further upmarket. As a result of this ambition, in 1965 the most famous post-Leyland Triumph was conceived.

Early in 1964, Giovanni Michelotti asked Webster whether it was possible for him to donate a used example of the recently launched Triumph 2000, so that it could form the basis of a one-off motor show special. Given the fact that the relationship between the two companies was by this time, rock solid, Webster said that he would gladly hand over one of the company’s race support cars. There was only one proviso: if Triumph liked the design, they would have priority on putting it into production. In June of that year, Triumph duly delivered their 2000 following the Le Mans 24-hour race – and now it was up to Michelotti exercise his creative talents.

Michelotti’s 1965 convertible based on a shortened Triumph 2000 floorpan would prove an irresistible proposition for Harry Webster.

The car that Michelotti produced was based on a shortened version of the 2000 floorpan – having several inches cut away from the wheelbase, in order to give the car attractive proportions – the engine, gearbox and suspension were stock Triumph 2000 items. The car’s frontal styling was at variance with Michelotti’s then current designs, but would soon become the family “face” of Triumph. Needless to say, the handsome 2-seater convertible easily won over Webster – and the project was taken over by Triumph for a full in-house development programme. Michelotti was never even given the opportunity to publicly show the car at the Turin Motor show, such was Triumph’s keenness to call it their own. It was early 1966 that work on the car was started in Canley, under the project name, “Stag”. The reason for the delay between Triumph grabbing the car and the development programme getting underway was because of Canley’s limited rsources. Harry Webster put it in these terms: “It was the usual problem of priorities, and money to tool it. I’m afraid it had to wait – we were particularly preoccupied with cars like the 1300 and TR5 at the time, and of course with the development of new engines.”

Shored up by the success of the 2000, Webster eventually convinced upper management that project Stag would be the ideal vehicle on which to base an aggressive expansion of exports to the USA. Originally, the Stag was designed to use the 2-litre straight-six engine in TS tune, but this was soon supplemented by a newer power unit when it became apparent that the Stag body pressings shared nothing with the Triumph 2000. The next phase in the engine saga was to use the 2.5-litre version of the straight-six – and it was only after several prototypes were built that the idea was dropped in favour of something more interesting.

Webster was also adamant that in order to succeed in the USA, the straight-six engine would need to be replaced by a V8 – the engine configuration of choice on the other side of the Atlantic. As it was, by 1966 Triumph’s own V8 engine was at an early stage of development, and it seemed at the time to be an entirely logical choice for the new car. Conceived as an addition to the Triumph engine range, the fuel injected 2.5-litre V8 was chosen as the Stag’s only power unit – and development of the Stag soon centred on this package.

There were problems with the Stag programme, but nothing significant enough to dissuade the company to forge ahead with its development. The structural rigidity of the car was causing concern for the Canley team, despite the later addition of double-skinned body panels. This led to the adoption of arguably the Stag’s most famous feature: the T-bar roll-over hoop. Basically, this arrangement was used to ensure structural rigidity, but the extra bar that joined the top of the windscreen to the B-post roll-over hoop was to cut down on scuttle shake.

During the early months of 1967 and whilst the development of the Stag was in full flow, Triumph was joined by arch-rival Rover in the Leyland group of companies. The reasoning behind this illogical purchase has been explained in chapter three, but the net result was that the two companies were now part of the same group – and competing models such as the Rover P6 and Triumph 2000 were now considered to be bedfellows. The ramifications of the takeover soon made themselves felt – and one main asset that Rover brought to Leyland was their ex-Buick V8 engine. By this time, however, development of Triumph’s own V8 was sufficiently advanced that Triumph felt that they should continue to base the Stag around it – no matter how appealing this rationalisation may have seemed.

Following the formation of British Leyland in 1968, Harry Webster moved to Austin-Morris and in his place, came Spen King. King had been working intensively on the Rover P8 when he changed camps – and one of the immediate questions coming to Triumph, was that concerning the Stag’s engine. Because of King’s intervention – his feeling was that the 2.5-litre version did not have enough power, the new V8 underwent something of a transformation: it had evolved into a 3-litre unit, and where it once used fuel injection, reliability issues forced the use of a carburettor set-up instead. Certainly it was a compact and light unit, but it was not without its fair share of problems. Without doubt, there was still a great deal of in-house rivalry between Rover and Triumph, and it is understandable that Triumph engineers would have been less than keen to use (what they perceived as) their rival’s engine in their upcoming flagship. King, however, was more pragmatic – and did raise questions.

Even with the hood up, the Stag was a most handsome car. It summed up all that was good and bad about BLMC: wonderful styling, brilliant concept – one fundamental flaw.

Triumph’s new V8 was compact, light and reasonably powerful. The decision to use this engine in the Stag instead of Rover’s off the shelf V8 was an easy one for Triumph to make – development had been a lengthy and costly affair – and the last thing that the company wanted was to scrap it.

Speaking to Car magazine in 1996, King had this to say on the matter: “I believed it when I was told that the Rover V8 wouldn’t fit into the Triumph Stag. I’m sure the car would have been a great success with an engine more reliable than the Triumph V8 we fitted instead.” British Leyland would pay a terrible price for this decision.

As it was, wider corporate issues set the development programme of the Stag back significantly, and because of this, British Leyland would not stomach its launch being put back any further. Although many commentators have subsequently spoken of the ease in which a “Rover” V8 would fit into the engine bay, to do so as late as 1968 would have undoubtedly meant the launch date of the Stag would have slipped even further back. As it was, the products of Rover and Triumph were being put under close scrutiny – and that sense of rivalry was being fuelled by the fact that both Solihull and Canley knew that there would have to be rationalisation – and that would inevitably be to the cost of one or the other.

The Stag opened up new markets for British Leyland – the company was well served with both Triumph and MG sports cars, but the Stag was something else again: a grand tourer. Essentially, the Stag created a market niche and although it was phased out in 1977 after a production run of 46,000, it is still viewed as the quintessential British “classic” sports car.

The Stag was launched in June 1970 and immediately created a favourable impression with buyers, who were quite literally enamoured by its simple beauty and its gorgeous engine note with accompanying exhaust “woofle”. Performance was good – its 2997cc engine certainly did everything asked of it and the 145bhp maximum power output compared favourably with the 143bhp from the 3528cc Rover unit. Sales started briskly and the effect on the Triumph range as a whole was marked – the uplift in image was there for all to see.

The company had also worked hard behind the scenes – before it was fashionable to talk in such terms – on some very interesting niche products. An estate version of the 1300 saloon was produced for Triumph by Carbodies – and like the 2000 estate, it did not major so much on carrying capacity, but on style. The idea never saw production because the budget that this car would have taken up was more sensibly spent on the introduction of the facelifted saloon model with its longer tail – and the expansion of the range. Whether the 1300 estate would have sold in any great numbers is open to debate, but it certainly pre-empted the trend towards “lifestyle” estates such as Rover’s own R8 Tourer by many years. Earlier, Triumph had also investigated a five-door version of the 2000 saloon called the 2000GT. This car, cast very much in the mould of the Rover SD1, was first evaluated in 1963 as an alternative to the estate version, also under development at the time. Carbodies got as far as producing a running prototype of the 2000GT before technical difficulties killed off the project – and Triumph questioned its marketability, anyway – but the existence of these two cars certainly demonstrate that there was some very original thought going on at Triumph.

(Left) Triumph 1300 Estate: an interesting concept, killed by budgetary constraints. (Right) The pre-prototype mock-up of the Triumph 2000GT shows refreshingly original thought in a 1963 design.

The company had also been hard at work on the replacements for the GT6 and TR5 models: Following hard on the heels of the Stag, project Bullet and Lynx were to spearhead Triumph’s attack on the sports car market – the closed Lynx model and targa-topped Bullet were both in the early stages of development at the time of the formation of BLMC – and although the Bullet did eventually go into production (in a much modified form) as the TR7, it was considered a corporate sports car, not a Triumph sports car. The very promising Lynx, however, was dropped as a result of post-merger rationalisation – there was only room for one new BLMC sports car. The Lynx name was not buried, though …

In the aftermath of the launch of the Stag, and even allowing for the loss of the upcoming Lynx sports car, Triumph possessed an enviable range of cars, which were viewed as something quite special: sporting, luxurious and above all, stylish: in modern terms, something akin to BMW. The sporting saloon image that had been fashioned out of the Mk.II Triumph 2000/2500 (restyled to echo the Stag) and Dolomite was only heightened by their family resemblance to the Stag. In fact, by 1972, the range looked unstoppable.

In the climate of post merger within BLMC, the position of Triumph would also have looked very good indeed: their new technical director was the gifted Spen King; there was still that inventive streak within the Triumph technical department; best of all though, BLMC’s chairman, Donald Stokes had his first taste of the car industry through Triumph, and it was the company that added to Leyland’s prosperity. In short, Triumph had the inside track and a lot of advantages.

Bullet and Lynx together in miniature – a sensible sports car strategy had been built around these cars and he Stag. The Triumph plan would have worked in isolation – once MG came on board, there was no room for all three.

So what went wrong?

As with the case of Rover, Triumph suffered in the confusion that followed the formation of British Leyland in 1968 – the disparate group of companies when brought together, produced a huge and overlapping range. Triumph, it seemed, were affected more than anyone else by this:

·   Triumph 1300: clashed with Austin-Morris 1300

·   Triumph GT6: clashed with MGB GT

·   Triumph Spitfire: clashed with MG Midget

·   Triumph 2500: clashed with Rover 2200

So as far as British Leyland’s accountants were concerned, at the time of the merger, most of Triumph’s range could justifiably be described as being surplus to requirements. That was a simplistic view of the situation of course, and the reality is that Triumph’s reputation was very strong with enthusiastic motorists who demanded something a little special. Although it terms of size and price, the Triumph 1300 and MG 1300 might have been quite similar, they appealed to very different drivers.

Following the merger, it became very apparent that Austin-Morris was in a bit of a mess and the money that had been rolling in from the successful Leyland truck operation, as well as Rover and Triumph was diverted into turning around the beleaguered volume division. Product strategies were devised rapidly, with the priority being placed on the rapid replacement of the ADO16 and ADO17 to the detriment of the ageing Triumph 1300/Dolomite. The ongoing sales of the small Triumph were healthy, and ongoing development led to the superb Dolomite Sprint, but the truth is that it was by now a 1965 design and it was falling behind newly emerging opposition from Saab and BMW at an alarming rate.

The delayed Triumph Dolomite Sprint – due for release in 1972, put back until 1973: Spen King’s reworking of the Dolomite 1850 slant four engine produced remarkable results. The Sprint was the first generally available 16-valve, four cylinder engine – and the numbers produced by the single cam engine were highly impressive. Maximum power was 127bhp, giving the bluff fronted saloon a maximum speed of 115mph and 0-60 acceleration of 8.7secs.

Serious work on the P6/2000/2500 clash only began in 1971 and although the car was conceived to replace the products of both marques, the decision was made early on to call it a Rover. Triumph, it seemed were already beginning to lose out – and when the SD2 Dolomite replacement was shelved in favour of an Austin-Morris model as a result of the Ryder Report, the future for Triumph (or should I say, lack of it) was sealed.

The product itself may have been respected, but the flagship car, the Stag, soon began to suffer from some fairly serious reliability issues. Traumatic as it is to relate, the Stag rapidly acquired the reputation as a car that would last for 30,000 miles and then blow up. Of course, some trade reputations were unjustified, but in the case of the Stag, they were not. A basic and fundamental weakness in the timing chains meant that they could stretch and jump a link or two – leading to disastrous consequences. The only prevention against this catastrophic fault involved changing the timing chains at a regular 20,000 miles, which severely limited the car’s image as a serious long distance cruiser.

The obvious answer of adapting the Stag to use Rover V8 power was expensive, and BLMC could not justify the cost, given the low volumes involved – the Stag would be allowed to wither on the vine.

The Dolomite Sprint also suffered from similar woes – original pre-1974 Sprints used a beautifully cast nitrided crankshafts, which ensured engine longevity. Within a year of launch, BLMC accountants ensured that a stock item replaced this expensive item. The result was increasing unreliability.

Within little time, the two engines designed to ensure Triumph kept up with their continental rivals had earned a reputation for fragility – and with it, the Triumph image began to wane.

In a way, both Rover and Triumph suffered terribly, following the formation of BLMC. In simple terms, both companies had bright futures before them – Rover as the producer of solid upper management-type cars and Triumph as the innovative producer of sporting saloons. A modern analogy would be that Rover was the “British Mercedes-Benz” and Triumph, the “British BMW”.

Within Leyland, there would have possibly been room for both companies to prosper, once the P6/2000 clash had been resolved – and possibly, Rover and Triumph would have gone on to great success during the ‘seventies and into the ‘eighties. But within BLMC, the situation changed radically: Jaguar remained at the pinnacle of the combined range, Rover were shifted downmarket in order to avoid direct competition. Triumph was left in no-mans-land, being squeezed between Rover and Austin-Morris. Jaguar, Rover and Triumph were placed in BLMC’s Specialist Division in 1971, but the truth of the situation was that that the parent company could not afford to maintain all three marques – not whilst Austin-Morris were in such dire straits.

The end result was Triumph died in 1984 – the date that marked the launch of the Rover 213: a car that in concept, deserved a Triumph badge.

Copyright © 2002 Keith Adams