Triumph TR7 in North America

US production began at Speke in January 1975. Each model year's cars can be told by their commission numbers, and from October 1979 by their VINs:

The five-speed gearbox was standard in every market during 1978, Ate Up With Motor writes; whether the last Speke cars, of the 1978 model year, had it as standard, no source read shows. The VINs of October 1979 had 14 characters, and North American cars built from May 1981 carried the full 17, with the SAT prefix and a check digit, by the TR Drivers Club's guide. Cars listed as "1982 TR7s" are late-sold cars, as the year-by-year page explains.⁠source 6​source 2​source 1​source 7​source 8

The engine was the same slant-four, detuned for the federal emissions rules: lower compression, two Zenith-Stromberg 175CD carburettors in place of Britain's SUs, and Lucas transistorised ignition. Cars for California, with its stricter rules, had a single carburettor and less power still. AROnline reads the two tunes as proof that BL "had no suitable 'federal' engine". Motor Sport, previewing the car in 1975, was blunter: no power output was quoted for the American engine, it wrote, "probably because we would all laugh at the figures".

By 1980 the 49-state engine had lost a little more power, by Ate Up With Motor's account. Then fuel injection came, Bosch's L-Jetronic, first to California's cars from 1 July 1980 and, for the 1981 model year, to every American car. The ratings for each are in the specifications, with their sources: the American launch figure is an SAE net rating and the British car's a DIN one, and the two cannot be set directly against each other. When the British car arrived, the magazine compared them anyway:

The body changed too. Bumpers built to take an 8 km/h (5 mph) impact, of box-section steel under a skin of self-skinning foam, with moulded overriders (bumper guards), made the American car 140 mm (5.5 in) longer than the British one; side-marker lamps went on the wings (fenders), most American cars had a front spoiler, and the steering wheel had a large padded centre. Under the skin were a front end designed to crumple, side-intrusion beams in the doors and the fixed roof.

Some American TR7s never crossed the Atlantic new. James TenCate's account of the production numbers, reprinted by the TR Drivers Club, notes cars bought in Britain by American servicemen and shipped home as personal exports.⁠source 1​source 2​source 9​source 10​source 11​source 12​source 13​source 6​source 14

The TR7 was priced over $700 above an MGB tourer and about $200 below the TR6, Ate Up With Motor writes, and dealers sold it beside the TR6. The importer's newsletter counted more than 9,000 in the first year, and AROnline's figures give 6,211 TR7s sold in 1975, about 16,000 in 1976 and 18,000 in 1977; about 65,000 were sold in America in all. By 1980 a TR7 cost about $10,000.

The early cars brought trouble with them: warranty costs averaged more than $500 a car, Ralph Nader's Center for Auto Safety complained to the federal safety agency in 1977, and owners filed a class action for $15.5 million in July 1978. Michael Lamm, recalling the period in 1999, wrote that the American company cut its dealers from about 1,200 to 400, and that Triumph's American sales fell from nearly 30,000 in 1977 to 12,733 in 1979, every model counted. By the 1981 model year buyers were being offered rebates.

Special editions were an American habit: a regional Southern Skies package and a Victory Edition in mid-1976 that, Ate Up With Motor writes, celebrated its racing, and the Spider, a convertible edition, for the 1980 model year. Dealers disliked them, Ate Up With Motor adds, citing Cook, because they offered extra equipment at a discount and cut the dealers' margins. Special editions gives what is known of each.⁠source 2​source 3​source 15​source 16​source 8

Canada had the federal car, with its own code in the VIN, L, and the suffix M on its commission numbers. It also had its own striping and wheels, and its own name for the car: AROnline writes that it was sold as "the magnificent seven". Canada's brochure for the convertible printed engine figures of its own; the specifications list them. In 1982 Canadian dealers were still advertising new TR7s as that year's cars.

Australia took the home-market cars, which the factory's records group as "Home Market, Europe and Australia", with K in the VIN. According to Wikipedia, citing the Australian guide What Car Is That? of 1981, they had a federal-type engine to meet Australia's emissions rules. A code for Japan appears in the club's list too, with a note that it may never have been used.⁠source 6​source 17​source 12​source 18

In North America the TR7 was a winner. In rallying, John Buffum won the Sports Car Club of America's Pro Rally championship in TR7s and TR7 V8s four years running, from 1977 to 1980; Ate Up With Motor, citing the Triumph Newsletter, records that seven of BL's eight North American rally wins in 1977 were his. On the circuits Group 44 raced TR7s in the SCCA's D Production class in 1976, winning at Lime Rock that April, and Ate Up With Motor records Lee Mueller's national title in a TR7 in 1979. Racing and rallying tell both in full.⁠source 2​source 19​source 20​source 21