British roadsters could not remain in the ‘30s forever, though some tried to very hard (looking at you, Morgan). Some makers were quicker than others off the mark, of course. After having bought the remains of a bankrupt Triumph, whose works had been utterly destroyed by the Luftwaffe’s many raids on Coventry, Standard elected to revive the brand pretty much from scratch. The pre-war-looking 1800 roadster and a pair of peculiarly-styled saloons were proposed initially, but then came the masterstroke, the sports car that everyone was waiting for. All hail the TR… 2?
Woah there, Standard-Triumph, hold your horses. Did you start a brand-new generation of models with a 2? What kind of pre-decimal nonsense is this? No worries, it all started with an X, actually.
At the 1950 Paris Motor Show, Triumph displayed a very sleek (and very short) drop-top with hidden headlamps dubbed TRX. It sat on a cut-down Standard Vanguard chassis, but was only devised for publicity purposes, not production. It did manage to garner a lot of attention though, so Triumph pressed on with their work.
In October 1952, the firm seemed ready for prime-time and exhibited the 20TS, also known as Triumph Sports. The principle was not too different from the TRX, except the body was styled far more conservatively. They had brochures printed and everything. But Standard-Triumph boss Sir John Black felt the car might need a bit of last-minute fine-tuning, so he roped in BRM driver Ken Richardson to get his impression of the car. It was pretty negative, so the bun went back in the oven for six months.
And this is what finally launched at the 1953 Geneva Motor Show. The tail was completely redesigned, the cockpit widened, the suspension reworked, the engine improved and the chassis stiffened. The stillborn 20TS was now pretty much a new car, so they renamed it TR2. Even though it was the third new Triumph roadster. But who’s counting?
The TR2 was immediately fêted as one of the best 4-cyl. roadsters ever to be made. The styling was (as ever, with Triumph) a bit strange, but blended modernity and tradition with aplomb. But the TR’s secret weapon was its engine. The “big” 2.2 litre Standard four was initially seen in Ferguson tractors in 1947, but that same year, Standard launched their groundbreaking post-war saloon, the Vanguard. Production started in the spring of 1948 with a 68hp 2.1 litre version of the tractor engine. Using this as a base, Triumph shrank it down to a shade under 2000cc, made dozens of other modifications, stuck two SU carbs on it and, lo and behold, squeezed 90hp out of it.
This was a lot of power for a minimal amount of car, enabling the Triumph to claim over 100mph in top speed. In fact, just two months after the TR2’s launch, a production car with a bit of extra streamlining (tonneau cover, rear spats, etc.) managed to reach 125mph. This attracted the attention of Britain’s smaller carmakers, who relied on majors like Austin, Ford or Standard-Triumph for their engines: for instance, the Morgan +4, hitherto motivated by the Vanguard motor, switched to TR power as soon as possible, gaining over 20hp and comforting its sporting credentials in one fell swoop.
It’s clear that Triumph had a good thing going with their new roadster. From a cost-performance point of view, the TR2 was head and shoulders above everything else on the market. I guess the Austin-Healey might also fit in this table (it would have cost £1063 at the time), and it did make for a serious competitor performance-wise, but with a 2.7 litre engine, it was in a different class for European customers.
Before the TR2, Triumph had little notoriety outside of the Britain and some corners of its fading Empire. But the hot little roadster changed all that and word spread quickly, in Europe, the US and beyond. The American market was key, of course – a veritably unquenchable thirst for Triumph drop-tops was created, not unlike what happened to MG a few years prior. North America was a large enough market for both Triumph and MG to thrive, and so they did for several decades.
The TR2, good though it was, had a short life. By September 1955, it was replaced by the TR3. Finally, Triumph were following some sort of numbering logic – which they kept going to the TR8, 25 years hence. That’s quite the dynasty.
In two and a half years, Triumph built 8636 units, of which only 2823 were sold domestically – and a few of those later migrated to Japan, it seems… A significant share of the export cars went Stateside, of course.
Hundreds of thousands of TRs owe their existence to this excellent first effort. Who is number one? The TR2.
This (and the TR3) were far more appealing than MG’s or Healey’s to my youthful self until the MGB came along. But then there was the TR4, even better. Because there’s no substitute for cubic inches. Really, until the TR7 came along, Triumph was a winner in my book and the TR8 (on paper, with V8 power) made up for any aesthetic shortcomings of the wedge shape.
It’s almost surprising that MG held its own as well as it did in the US in the face of the TRs, which were invariably faster. But then there was the styling; the MGA, and especially the MGB, looked so much better than the knobby, rough hewn TRs.
I suppose this is a matter of taste, but I have always preferred the looks of the Triumph cars of the 60s and 70s to any MG model. In particular, the rubber bumper MGBs and Midgets in my eyes were awkward compared to the TR6, TR7, and Spitfire of the same era.
This was not helped by the decision to jack up the suspension of the MGB with a spacer rather than redesign the bumper to meet American bumper height requirements, which had the side effect of screwing up the handling. It just looked awkward.
I do agree that the MGB retained its position by being an attractive and affordable two-seat roadster during its sales period. For a Baby-Boomer like me, it was the default convertible until the Miata came along – they were everywhere.
Nice find.
Still a perfect 2nd or 3rd car. Quick enough to keep with the current traffic, good roadholding and pretty reliable (waiting now for the boring Lucas “funnies”). Easy DIY maintenance, parts are plentiful and cheap.
The nice thing about these roadsters is that you sit so near the ground so that it really feels you are going fast without actually going fast. So much fun.
They were so reliable you could, famously, reach out the door and stub out your electrical fire on the footpath.
No?
Was the Austin-Healey 100 for export only in 1954? It seems like the 100-4 should have been on the comparison chart of British market four-cylinder roadsters. The TF-1500 would have been the fastest of the T-series MG Midgets, and yet it was over 20 mph slower than the Triumph. It seems remarkable that a Morgan +4 with the Triumph’s powertrain cost meaningfully less than the mass-produced TR2. Sure, the Triumph was the more complete and superior car, but you’d think that a car hand-built out of ash and aluminum would cost far more to make.
Great recap of the TR2 story. As soon as I saw the TatraTable™ I went “Yes!”, rubbed my hands and was glad I’d made a fresh coffee!
I hadn’t thought about the Healey’s engine putting it ‘out of reach’ so far as European customers were concerned, but then it was far larger at 2.7 litres. No more powerful than Triumph’s 2 litre in base form though, which pointss to the more modern design. Standard guys will tell you the car engine and tractor engine weren’t the same, and I can’t imagine a Fergy in TR2 tune would be much use on the farm, but I’m not sure how deep the differences go.
I always thought the TR2 looked odd with the ‘kicked-in front’, with the grill shoved back in against the radiator. But it’s much more balanced-looking than the bobtailed 20TS.
“Kicked-in front”.
I like that! I’ve always more thought of it as “Shit, I just swallowed my dentures!”, but same concept.
As a complete digression, I didn’t know the Austin A90 donk in the Healey was out of date at the time.
Back in ’53/’54 I sometimes travelled by bus past a Triumph dealer, and there was always a white TR 2 just inside the showroom window. I was truly in love, and thought the air-intake looked like it belonged on a jet engine….
Great little cars, The engine is NOT the same as the Fergy which was 1.8 in 1947 but being a wet sleeve block was fairly easy to enlarge, The fergy has a different block head valves and ignition cam some internal parts are shared or will interchange,
as a teen on school holidays I worked in Fergy spares, because tractor parts attracted less tax a lot of farming people bought what would fit in a Vanguard/ TR engine from us to repair their ailing cars liners pistons and bearings is about it.
One enterprising individual fitted the TR head manifolds ignition camshaft etc to a TEA28 tractor not sure why but he traded it on a brand new 135 Massey Ferguson diesel so the extra power either not needed or not wanted, and the trade in was converted back to tractor spec repainted and sold on for more than they cost new which was normal in those times those grey Fergys were sought after,
My exs dad in Sydney had a TR3a with a Judson blower fitted it was fast point to point but traded on a 63 Holden new which I ended up with.
Sorry Bryce, but I do think the engines are somewhat related.
https://www.revingtontr.com/productimages/docs/00001737/is0059-tr-4-pot-engine-history-protected.pdf
Now, be fair, T.
It’s pretty clear from that article that not even the head and block castings were the same, and further on, it’s also clear that essentially stuff-all internals actually matched: Bryce says liners and bearings did, but it seems even the bearings weren’t common either. So in short, they’re most definitely the same engine family, but it’s pretty accurate to say “the engine is NOT the same as the Fergy”, and “somewhat related” is really only true in the way the Buick V8 is to the Repco-Brabham one.
Perhaps “same engine family”, or “clearly cousins, but one tilled the soils and the posher one spilled the toils”, or some such.
I’ve only ever sat in and started one of these, and, given that the painted line next to me was (I swear), higher, I was too terrified to go any faster than stopped. Perhaps the original was lower yet, and this one is “Terrifyingly Recumbent 2” inches more, and hence the nomenclature?
Nice post. And I have been educated that there was an Allard Palm Beach (which it seems was more of a Dullard Chesil, judging by the pic of the rather homely object itself).
I’d seen the Allard before, but only the Mark II, which is something of a Healey-copycat. Now I know why the Mark I is rarely encountered, even in photographs.
I’ve had a fortunate life. Mechanic who worked on anything you brought, I fell in love with sport,,so. s cars,and would buy ones people couldn’t afford to fix. 1954 TR2,57 3, 2 3as,one of which was built for racing by Castner,real fast. As long as you knew about oversteer they were a blast.