Attention All TRIUMPH race fans. The article below was written by longtime
TRIUMPH vintage racer Bill Dentinger and will appear in a future Vintage
Sports Car Drivers' Association newsletter. You should view this as your
invitation to attend the VSCDA Children's Museum Vintage Grand Prix October
2-4 at Indianapolis Raceway Park (NOT the Speedway). TRIUMPH is the
featured car this year, in honor of TRIUMPH's 75th anniversary. Hope to see
you there. For more information, you can email the VSCDA at
vscda@iserve.net Hope you can make it, I'm going and I know it will be
great.
Irv Korey
74 TR6 CF22767U
66 TR4A CT52499
Highland Park, IL
TRIUMPH
If there is a sports car that was specifically developed, manufactured, and
marketed for those of us who like me, are common and unwashed, then surely
that marque is TRIUMPH, and our marque is about to have another Day in the
Sun. TRIUMPH will be spotlighted at INDIANAPOLIS RACEWAY PARK on October
2nd,
3rd, and 4th, 1998, when the Vintage Sports Car Drivers Association’s holds
its final vintage racing event of the year. The Third Annual Children’s
Museum Vintage Grand Prix will spotlight the torquey, blue collared,
journeyman sports cars produced by the STANDARD TRIUMPH COMPANY. There
will
be a special competition paddock area for the TRs, the Spits, the GT6s, and
any TRIUMPH specials, along with a special Feature Race HELD just for
TRIUMPHs.
TRIUMPH has long been known as the common man’s sports car, or with tongue
in
cheek, the marque of the Great Unwashed. Surely early on this description
was
meant to poke good natured fun at TRIUMPH’s modest cost and shear numbers.
As
sports cars go, they were very economical. In the early 1950s their battle
cry was, “A million dollars worth of fun, for less than $2,500!” As sports
cars go, they are common by comparison. Hundreds of thousands were
manufactured in England and shipped all over the world. The vast majority
came here to the United States. The common man could afford to buy one.
He
could use it to go to work. He could take his wife shopping. And while
this
may be just a rumor some husbands told their wives that you could even get
two
or three kids in the back to go on a picnic. But true or false, these were
TRIUMPH’s short suits. Of critical importance were TRIUMPH’s long suits,
and
the fact that these cars were REAL sports cars. They were constructed and
built for motorsports. On the week this car would do hill climbs, rallies,
tours, time trials, and you could go racing. Not only that. YOU COULD
WIN!
AND TRIUMPH DID WIN. Based strictly on its number of wins, TRIUMPH sports
cars hold a valid claim as the winningest marque in the history of
motorsports.
If you want to trace TRIUMPH’s roots, you had better be willing to travel
down
more than one road. That is because TRIUMPH is more mongrel than
thoroughbred. TRIUMPH always tried to build their sports cars from
existing
components, and therefore it had to maintain strong ties that run the gamut
for various people and companies who manufactured automobiles, bicycles,
motorcycles, tractors, and all the many parts thereof. Truth be told, you
will even find a German accent if you look back far enough. TRIUMPH’s
oldest
roots are said to go back to the late 1800s when one Siegfried Bettmann
began
making bicycles in Coventry, England. As time went on, his company also
began
a division to produce motorcycles, and later automobiles. These three
divisions were later sold individually to other companies, who expanded
operations, and in the case of the automobiles and motorcycles, actually
went
on to greatness. The bicycle division was sold in the early 1930s, the
motorcycles in the mid-1930s, and finally the automobile division (to
Standard
Motor Cars) in 1944. TRIUMPH’s ties to the agricultural implement industry
exist because it was a souped up Ferguson tractor engine that was selected
to
power the early TR series sports cars. Hence, in the heyday of sports car
racing, TEAM TRIUMPH was affectionately referred to as TEAM TRACTOR.
Clearly the other personalities involved with TRIUMPH sports cars were
English. They included Donald Healey (of Austin/Healey fame), who was
critical to the development of the Gloria Southern Cross and Dolomite
sports
cars in the 1930s. Of course Sir John Black held the purse strings, as
Boss
of Bosses at Standard Motor Cars. No body at Standard Motor Cars knew much
about sports cars, and their first attempts in the 1940s (the 1800 and 2000
Roadsters) and early 1950s (the 20TS, later known as the TR1) were limp-
wristed efforts at
best. It as Ken Richardson and Harry Webster, who in five months converted
the 20TS into the TR2 prototype, and took it to Jabbeke and set incredible
speed records (for a production based car). Richardson went on to run
TRIUMPH’s Works Competition Department, including that period when they
finished First, Second, and Third in Class at LeMans. And there was even a
high level Clerk of the Works Bean Counter by the name of Alick Dick
(really),
who was competition friendly, and managed to help keep TRIUMPH involved in
motorsports, when many of the others in TRIUMPH’s Top Management were fast
losing interest. Allotted space does not permit a list of the many famous
racers, who cut their teeth in TRIUMPHs, but there were many, and it is
well
to note that here in the United States, it was Kas Kastner and Bob Tullius,
who ensured the marque’s place in U.S. motorsports history. TRIUMPH’s
glory
spans more than fifty years. Back in the 1930s, it was the durable Gloria
Southern Cross (especially the long bonnet version), who battled
successfully
against HRGs, MGs, MORGANs and other famous British vertical rads, but it
was
the TR series (1952-1981), and then the Spitfire, GT6, and Vittesse cars
which
followed, that put TRIUMPH on the Motorsports Map for good.
A sports car for the common man. What a concept! In the mid-1950s, when a
respectable sports car sold for anywhere from five to fifteen thousand
dollars
(or a whole lot more), a Road Racer Wannabee, with a far more modest
budget,
could purchase a TRIUMPH for around twenty-five hundred bucks. And it
would
beat any standard American car away from a stop sign, and if you had to, it
would go over one hundred miles per hour right off the dealer’s showroom
floor. It came with dual carbs, bucket seats, side-curtains, disc brakes,
and
a wave in its belt line that allowed you to reach out and pat Mother Earth.
Now that’s a sports car! Then there was a whole list of dealer stocked,
reasonably priced, factory developed, and
factory tested go-faster racing goodies. There was a God, and Life was
Good!
But in the end, TRIUMPH’s basic mission probably contributed to its own
downfall. At the end, TRIUMPH probably was trying to do too much, too
soon,
and for too little. Clearly England’s labor problems in the 1970s
contributed
to some shoddy workmanship. Models, particularly the radical TR7, was
brought
out too soon, and well before all of the bugs could be fixed. It was sad.
In
the late 1970s, TRIUMPH was setting the pace, but its own ill-health would
not
allow it to maintain the pace, or even keep up. There are those that
believe
the TR8, with its aluminum V8 engine, was the last real sports car. True
or
not, it was the basis for a GREAT sports car. It also came too late to
keep
STANDARD TRIUMPH in the sports cars business.
Not to worry! THE GLORY STILL EXISTS! Years and years after TRIUMPH
stopped
producing sports cars, competitors continue to do battle in all aspects of
modern amateur racing. In venues like SCCA, Midwestern Council, and
especially
in our own vintage racing TRIUMPH is a major player. Why in the late
1980s,
Hardy Prentice in a TR3, and in the early 1990s Jack Wheeler in a TR4 each
won
E Production National Championships at the SCCA Run Offs, and always
against
far more modern machinery.
And thousands and thousands of TRIUMPH sports car aficionados still abound.
There must be more TRIUMPH SPORTS CAR CLUBS in this world than any other
marque. These people are fiercely loyal, and where others suggest TRIUMPH
has
short comings, they find true character and style. TRIUMPH GLORY STILL
EXISTS
and it will be on display when the VSCDA visits INDIANAPOLIS RACEWAY PARK
on
October 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 1998.
...Bill Dentinger
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