************************************************************************
******
This is getting complicated - my comments prefaced "DK" and Philip's
"PR"!
DK said:
>The Triumph TR7 was one of the key factors in the death of Abingdon and
>the last of the Abingdon built MG sports cars. That alone qualifies the
>poor thing for vilification in the eyes of many of us. But beyond that,
>it was - at first - absolutely crap.
PR responds:
Key words - 'At first'
DK replies:
Granted. The magazines, such as Autocar, Motor and Road & Track all gave
it a guarded welcome but even they, sports car enthusiasts to a man
(person?), made some doubtful noises about the styling and some other
features. But then again they liked the rubber bumper MG Midget and MGB
rather less - those cars were seen as well past their sell-by date.
DK said:
>
>This is not just something I have picked up by association or through
MG
>bias; I have dug deep into the history of the car during the course of
>my research.
>
>My cousin bought an early four speed and it was an absolute dog; a
white
>car which even had underseal spotted all over the boot (trunk) lid,
>various smears of glue everywhere, numerous mechanical faults (we pored
>over the car when it was brand new and listed fifty faults). He did not
>keep it long.
PR responds:
this was all down to build quality. The basic design was sound. The
later
cars were far better. They boasted the excellent Rover SD1 5-speed box,
decent build quality, nicer wheels and a better interior.
DK replies:
Much of the basic design was sound, and certainly advanced the LBC art
from the MGB (as it damned well should after 13 years). But there were
still fundamental design flaws, many down to cost paring or the need to
stick with some poor components (and suppliers!).
DK said:
>
>Then you have to realise that the early cars were built at Speke - a
>brand new car being built in a newly refitted factory miles away from
>Triumph's HQ at Coventry by a workforce which was 90% nincompoops. Even
>the Triumph engineering people didn't like it (the styling, for a
start,
>had been imposed upon them!), and as for the people who had to handle
it
>at BL's Leonia NJ offices in the US - well you should hear first hand
>(as I have) what they thought of it.
PR responded:
So you don't like Scousers then David??
DK replies:
No slurs intended against the great people of Liver-pyoool! The fact was
that the men of Merseyside had a great tradition of heavy engineering
and union militancy, and very little in terms of car building. Training
and investment in the local community education system would have
helped, but BL was forced to build the TR7 at Speke because of a legacy
of 1960's government actions which had forced the building of new
factories in areas of high unemployment. Thes sites were often remote
from the HQ - look at Rootes' Hillman Imp plant at Linwood, for example
(that helped to wreck the company). In later years, Vauxhall and Ford
both proved you could build cars well in the Mersey area, although even
they have not been without industrial strife. The sad fact with the TR7
was however that much of the labour was unskilled, and it showed - and
this information came to me from Triumph engineering people who were
there. When Speke was closed (the other members of the TR family -
including the MG sister cars - failing to materialise) and the TR7 moved
to Canley, the cars became better built but cost more (at Speke, much
had been done within the one factory; at Canley, BL was back to
shuttling components around the country from factory to factory). And
what is more, the cost of the Speke factory still hung like a lead
balloon on the financial balance sheets, even if some of it may have
been "written off" as part of the government nationalisation of BL in
1974/5, just prior to the TR7 launch.
DK said:
>
>The MGB continued to outsell the TR7, and indeed the people at Leonia
>told BL back here in the UK to give them a new MG. But BL didn't listen
>("we know best") - a common fault of the British management, which
>occasionally asked opinions (when it was too late) but rarely acted
upon
>what they were told.
>
>Time has certainly mellowed the TR7 - the later cars, and the
>convertibles in particular are quite good cars - but please don't let
us
>pretend that it was a GOOD car that has been sadly maligned. With the
>possible exception of the TR8, the TR7 was a classic example of so much
>that was bad about the UK car industry in the 1970's.
PR responded:
I dunno, I reckon the later cars were actually rather good, if you look
at them in the context of other cars of the late 1970s. I think because
the TR7 convertible still looks modern, people forget it is 20 years
old.
Now, I wonder what this thread would have been like if BL had gone ahead
and built an MG-badged TR7. I bet you wouldn't all be slagging it off
then would ya? :-)
(Ohh, nice bit of controversy for a Monday morning :-) )
DK replied:
By then it was a case of too little, too late. There were some
attractive facelift ideas (and some horrible ones) but the strong pound
and BL's other troubles meant that the TR7 followe the MGB into
oblivion.
************************************************************************
******
|