TriumphTR7
A red, white and blue rally coupé with flared arches and the number 2, seen side-on in a museum hall.

Notable Triumph TR7s

The TR7s with stories of their own, car by car: the works rally cars of Abingdon, some of which shared a number plate (license plate), the last TR7 built, the prototypes at Gaydon, the turbocharged car built for Le Mans, an estate and a prize car.

The best known of the works cars, side-on at Gaydon in August 2021: the TR7 V8 that took Pond and Gallagher to wins at Ypres and on the Manx in 1978.35mmMan, CC BY 2.0

The best-known TR7s were works rally cars, and they are known by their number plates. That is not quite safe. The TR Drivers Club's register of the works team lists 20 registrations, but at least five of them were carried by two different cars, and one plate was borrowed for a single rally from another car altogether. The cars below are listed car by car, with their plates, and the ones with most to tell have pages of their own.⁠1​2

The works rally cars

The first two cars to rally, in 1976, were 16-valve coupés registered KDU 497N and KDU 498N, the second of them the car of the TR7's first two wins, both with Pond: the Raylor in October 1976 and, its first international victory, the Boucles de Spa of 1977. The 16-valve cars that followed carried OOE and OOM plates, and one of them, SCE 645S, was built by Safety Devices at Newmarket, the only works TR7 not built at Abingdon, the club records. OOM 512R went on as a V8 and gave the TR7 V8 its first win.

The SJW cars of 1978 began with SJW 533S, which has a TR7 Sprint's ACH chassis number: it ran its first rally with a 16-valve engine, became a V8 for the Welsh in May and was the first car painted in the red, white and blue. SJW 540S won Ypres and the Manx in 1978 and is at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon. Six cars were built with left-hand drive for continental drivers, from SJW 548S on; one of them, TUD 682T, carries a pre-production TR8's chassis number. HRW 251V was the last new works car built and used, and TUD 683T, the second car to carry that plate, won Ypres and the Manx in 1980.

Two more cars belong in the margins. Motor Sport's Jeremy Walton gives the V8's first test car, of October 1977, the plate KDU 496N, which is missing from the club's register. And BL's production table for 1977, as the TR Drivers Club reproduces it, includes seven TR7 V8 coupés for the home market, with a note that they were possibly rally cars.⁠1​3​4​5​6​2

A red, white and blue rally car sliding away from the camera on a muddy stage.
SJW 548S, which the club's register records in private hands, sliding away through the mud of the Race Retro stage at Stoneleigh Park in March 2008.estoril, CC BY 2.0

Factory and museum cars

The last TR7, a right-hand-drive drophead registered MOV 542X, went from the line at Solihull in October 1981 into BL's heritage collection, and it is at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon, with the works rally car SJW 540S and the prototypes of the family that never was: the Lynx and two Broadsides. Canley Classics calls a development TR7 with a turbocharged O-Series engine the fastest Triumph ever, after its laps of MIRA; the Lynx, Broadside and Boxer page gives its speed.⁠5​2​7

A champagne convertible with its hood up beside an information board in a museum.
MOV 542X, the last TR7 built, with its hood (soft top) up beside its museum board at the Heritage Motor Centre, Gaydon, in December 2007.MilborneOne, CC BY-SA 3.0

Prototypes and one-offs

The most extreme TR7 was built for Le Mans: the Le Mans TR7 turbo, a Group 5 racer with two turbochargers on its Rover V8, which Janspeed and ADA Engineering made from a BL development car and which failed to qualify in 1980.

Two others were built for customers of a different kind. Page Motors, a dealer, had Crayford Engineering turn a TR7 into a sporting estate in 1976–77, the Tracer; AROnline knows of no other, and the car was restored in Britain in 2022–23. And in 1981 Wood & Pickett built the Sheaffer TRZ, a TR7 prize car for a pen maker's competition, which AROnline last places in a car park at Brands Hatch in 1986; the TR7 in popular culture tells its story.⁠8​9​10​11

The rear of a green hatchback coupé with long side windows, in a museum.
The TR7 Lynx prototype from behind at Gaydon in August 2015, one of the cars of the family that was never built.Matthias v.d. Elbe, CC BY-SA 3.0

Notable cars

  • Triumph Broadside drophead prototype

    Survives

  • Triumph Broadside GT prototype

    Survives

  • Crayford TR7 Tracer

    Survives

  • HRW 250V

    Survives

  • HRW 251V

    Whereabouts unknown

  • KDU 496N

    Whereabouts unknown

  • KDU 497N (first car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • KDU 497N (second car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • KDU 498N

    Destroyed

  • KHP 537V

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Triumph Lynx prototype

    Survives

  • OOE 937R

    Destroyed

  • OOE 938R

    Destroyed

  • OOM 513R

    Survives

  • OOM 514R (first car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • OOM 514R (second car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • SCE 645S

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Sheaffer TRZ

    Whereabouts unknown

  • SJW 533S

    Survives

  • SJW 546S

    Survives

  • SJW 548S

    Survives

  • TUD 682T

    Whereabouts unknown

  • TUD 683T (first car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • TUD 686T

    Whereabouts unknown

  • UYH 863S (first car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • UYH 863S (second car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • XJO 414V (first car)

    Whereabouts unknown

  • XJO 414V (second car)

    Whereabouts unknown

Sources

Every source the site cites is on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  1. Chris Turner (credited by the club), "The Works Triumph TR7 V8 Rally Cars" and the car pages (group), TR Drivers Club, the register: 20 registrations; the plates on two cars; JJO 931W; the register and the car pages: KDU 497N, KDU 498N, SCE 645S, SJW 533S, SJW 540S, the LHD cars, HRW 251V, TUD 683T. trdrivers.com/articles21/rallyhistory.html Reference
  2. Keith Cox, "Gaydon cars with a TR7 connection", TR Drivers Club, the cars at Gaydon; rally car: the SJW cars from discarded production TR7s; the last TR7; the Lynx; the two Broadsides; SJW 540S. trdrivers.com/articles21/gaydoncars.html Reference
  3. Jeremy Walton, "Abingdon finds a new Healey called Triumph", Motor Sport, Sep 1978, p. 30, p. 30, KDU 496N. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september-1978/30/abingdon-finds-new-healey-called-triumph Primary
  4. triumphtr8.com, "TR7V8 – TR8 Rally Cars" and the event pages (group), TUD 682T's ACN chassis number. triumphtr8.com/tr7v8-tr8-rally-cars Reference
  5. Paul Towle and Rex Holford (update) and Mark Elbers (update), "TR7 & TR8 Identification & Production Data Explained", TR Drivers Club, 1987, updated (© 2016), the 1977 calendar row: "7 TR 7 V8 home market coupes, possibly rally cars"; the last car, 408534. trdrivers.com/tr7_-_tr8_vin_numbers.htm Reference
  6. Jim Johnson, TR7 Sprint articles (group): "The Original TR7 Sprint", "Update June 2005", "Early TR7 Sprint Competition Cars", TR Drivers Club, the SJW registrations in the Sprint survey. trdrivers.com/articles21/tr7sprint2.html Reference
  7. Canley Classics, "The Fastest Ever Triumph", the turbocharged O-Series car at MIRA. canleyclassics.com/api/archive/article/?q=the-fastest-ever-triumph Reference
  8. Jim Johnson, "The Le Mans TR7 Turbo Entry", TR Drivers Club, the Le Mans car. trdrivers.com/articles21/lemanstr7turbo1.html Reference
  9. Jeremy Walton ("J.W."), "A TR7 for Le Mans", Motor Sport, May 1980, p. 37, p. 37. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1980/37/tr7-le-mans Primary
  10. Declan Berridge, "The converters: Crayford Engineering TR7 Tracer", AROnline, 27 Mar 2023, the Tracer, one built for Page Motors; restored 2022–23. aronline.co.uk/the-converters/crayford/tr7-tracer Reference
  11. Keith Adams, "Sheaffer TRZ", AROnline, 5 Aug 2011, the TRZ. aronline.co.uk/cars/triumph/tr7-tr8/sheaffer-trz Reference