De Triumph TR saga. It is a long history, which has produced many beautiful sports cars. A ladder frame as the backbone of an illustrious brand that has long since passed away. But the latter does not mean that the Coventry builder has been forgotten. Because Triumph built many beautiful cars, which you can still enjoy today.
Take the TR3 and the TR6. Those were important to Triumph. Moreover, these are two extremes with the same basis, but with a completely different appearance. They were bridged by the Michelotti-TR models. Those are also those beautiful sports cars that you must have driven at least once. Two extremes too, enveloping a timeline in which beautiful gradual developments took hold of the athletes from Great Britain. Resulting in the TR6, the best-selling TR after its successor. That was the TR7, the essentially differently constructed one Triumph with its typical seventies coat.
Cornerstones. still
The TR3 and the TR6, which we call them here, of course. They harmonized in full glory during a beautiful day in the Southwest of Friesland. In triplicate the Triumph TR represented. One TR6 with carburettor engine, one TR6 with PI application, and one TR3A. enhanced, modified or personalized by the respective owners. These are Huib de Graaf, Hein Leemhuis and Ben Wilbrink, Triumph adepts with a heart for the brand and for the TR club, to which they are all connected. Advocates for the beauty of what was once one of the cornerstones of the British Sports Car industry. Still it is.
TR, license to dream
Why that is so? Anyone who was there on that beautiful and brooding day experienced that old-fashioned sports car pleasure, which is still the watershed between past and present today. Still belongs Triumph to the category of manufacturers, who subtly made clear how tasteful sports cars were built. Cars that showed and felt why one could dream of a special car.
Huib. The dream came true
Huib de Graaf did this when he was 18, and the Triumph TR dream when he walked into a workshop during a break. There his pilot ignited in wish-fire. Because he saw a TR6, with damage. But he knew. Ever, ever, ever. That moment came in the mid-6s, he bought his TRXNUMX and over the years he turned his dream car into the fantastic sports car it is today. A car that saw all of Europe during its long ownership and now has a logbook that many adventurers are jealous of.
Hein, passionate about the TR6 PI
Hein is also out Triumph wood cut. Beset by it Triumph TR belief. Rather: by the TR6 PI, which he improved himself, with which he entered the fight to improve the Lucas makks. A convertible that makes it clear what a narrow powerband is, which, like Huibs' copy, powerfully cuts through the most beautiful landscapes. And it is so beautiful to drive. It's your choice how to drive, at your service! The flawless six in-line basses embraced the landscape on a beautiful day, and told everything about the potential. No shouting, but a full tenor who bluffs in nothing, but delivers on everything. Amen.
Ben, nimble with the TR3A
And what about the Triumph TR by Ben Wilbrink. He took a technical approach to his TR3A and reaped the benefits. He nicknamed his TR3A Piglet. The nestor of the three is bursting with details that jears fifties and early sixties to breathe. A different world, a different time too, but with sub-elements that also guided the successors through time. The TR3A, driven by Ben deftly, with its organically changing color scheme in the area around Heeg, just did not take the TR6's size. It was striking how the TR3A was able to keep up with the younger TR6 copies on the day, that everything was right.
Freedom regained
And you want to make a correct report of it. It worked. We dedicated seven pages Auto Motor Klassiek 11-2020 to this day. It was all about beautiful stories and ditto photo work by Bart Spijker. From maintenance, technology, dreams, travel, and a look inside the Triumph TR Club Regio 8. And of restoration history, a beautiful photo location and of course that ride, which rearranged everything within an atmosphere of regained freedom. In an incredibly beautiful way.
Yes, as with my parked TR4A IRS, where a scissor-mounted truck drove over so that there was nothing left of my beautiful TR.
This whole story with several photos can be read, at least if the editors are going to post my story.
I think it has been more than a year since I submitted this.
Yours faithfully,
Thirty years ago I had a TR-6, one of the nicest cars I have ever owned. Good seating position, wonderfully smooth engine and everything I needed (have) was on it.
I would say, my dear fellow: ”Jolly nice cars !!”
These fellows dressed in a woolen tweed would give a nice finishing touch.
😇