Triumph

A snarky little sports car that got off to a bad start thanks to weak handling.

Early years

Triumph was in its time a well-regarded English car brand. The company was based in Coventry, and had a history going all the way back to 1865 when they started manufacturing bicycles. This production was supplemented by the production of motorcycles. Around 1921, the first car went into production. It was a small car with the designation "Triumph Light Car". Several models followed this one, mainly small cars. But in 1929, times became very bad with the result that the production of cars almost stopped. In the 1930s when times improved, several new models were launched. The factory now concentrated on more sporty cars with larger engines. The war put an end to car production in 1939.

Standard Triumph

After the war the company was sold to the Standard Motor Company who used the name Standard Triumph on the cars. A number of exciting Triumph sports models came on the market, while the ordinary passenger cars were produced under the brand name "Standard". In 1959, a new Triumph finally arrived. It was a sporty family car that was named "Triumph Herald". With this model as a starting point, several sports models were developed.

Based on the Spitfire

One of the models was a nice sports model which was a further development of the smaller model "Spitfire". It was completely closed and had a large door at the back. The appearance was somewhat reminiscent of the Jaguar E and the model was quickly nicknamed the "poor man's E model". The solution gave it good luggage space and it could be delivered with a small rear seat with room for 2 children. An engine with 6 cylinders ensured good speed resources. It had a higher top speed than the competitor MG-B which was a good selling point. Everything was in place for a success. But the driving characteristics were not the best on the first variant. To save money, Triumph used technical solutions from the affordable passenger car model "Herald". It didn't measure up and it got a bad reputation due to poor handling. A modified version with far better driving characteristics came in 1969 but sales never rose to the level Triumph had hoped for and in 1972 it was over.