Walking back from work to my car this afternoon I noticed a silver/light grey TR7 rolling up to some traffic lights.
I'm not a classic car enthusiast, by any means, but I was struck by how good it still looks. I think svelte would be the right word. Not only that, but it still looks modern. It could easily have passed itself off as a recently produced model to someone who did'nt recognise it as a TR7.
Anyway, it moved me enough to want to tell someone about it, hence the post.
Never mind!
Pete
To cure you of this, try sitting in one - the dash is 70's tastic. I do admit that I quite like the outward appearance. No where near as good as say a Stag though.
Great looking cars.
Pile of poo to drive, and even worse to try and maintain, but the bodyshell _was_ a nice shape. Of course the 4x4 version was best 8-)
Yes, they are quite pretty. At the time, I think there was deep disappointment that a new TR should (a) be a hardtop with no convertible on offer, and (b) have a third fewer cylinders and a third less power than its faster-accelerating predecessor. Whoever said a camel was a horse designed by a committee might just as well have said that a TR7 was a TR6 updated by a committee.
That said, I'd like one, but I'd like a white TR7 Sprint with a 16-valve engine. The TR8 is quicker, but there are just too many home-made TR8s around. If you bought a real RHD one, it would be shabby if original and you'd knacker the value if you spruced it up.
I'd also like a TR5 and a Triumph Italia to go with it but that's another story.
I only ever drove one, which was a near new late model. And I found it very pleasant to drive compared to say a 'B'. Could have done with more power, of course.
What's the difference between a V8 MGB convertible and a TR8 ?
For the MGB, it's the home-brews that have the crappy build quality.
I've owned both, and prefer the TR7 convertible anytime. The TR6 may have been quicker in a straight line, but anything other than motorway driving was very tiring, and the TR7 is much more comfortable.
"Neil Raines" wrote
Agrees, but I think there was a substantial faction that rated straight-line performance above all else. I've laways found TR7s to be quite cosy motorway cruisers.
The TR7 is a 'modern' classic sports car, one of the only ones I can fit in (rather large!) and comfortably drive. RWD handling, nice suspension, open top and pretty IMHO. I have yet to find a car which will beat one (TR7 V8) for grin factor per pound with cheap DIY maintenance and a superb parts supply. The dash in mine is a little plasticity but surprising rattle free!
That was the worst part of it. Huge great trailing arms from the Dolly, with enormous rubber doughnuts in them. There's minimal lateral location at the best of times and if those bushes start to soften with age then it turns into a right old pram.
I never had a TR7 myself, although a friend used to have one at the time I had my Fiat 124 BC (a superb car). Later I had a Dolly Sprint, which another friend crashed after being bitten by this wagging back-end problem. The nastiest car I've ever been unfortunate enough to have - certainly straight line fast, but woefully unreliable and it had no interest in cornering.
I've yet to come across any car with reasonably sophisticated suspension - ie the sort that moves - where it will function correctly with worn bushes.
But some are worse than others. The Dolly had _real_ jellymould rubbers that barely worked when in working order. They suffered more easily than others, and were worse when they'd done so.
My Fiat OTOH still handled well when the rubbers had collapsed to crumbs. They were small and squashed between large washers. At the worst they'd develop radial clonking, but they just never had the space for off-axis twisting.
"Andy Dingley" wrote
Not for nothing did one of the classic car magazines describe TR7s as "handling like a bowl of semolina".....
Yebbut Fiats don't obey the same laws of physics as other cars. I had a
128 estate once that cornered as if on rails. I could be remembering wrong, but I'm almost certain it managed this with a transverse leaf spring at the front!
Back AFAIR, not front.
MacPherson struts at the front. I've had a couple 128s and they indeed handle rather well.
Depends on your priorities. If the Fiat bushes had little effect on the handling when collapsed, they'd also have little effect in preventing the transmission of road noise and vibration, etc.
Most bushes are easy enough to replace, and presumably polythene ones are available for the Dolly if you wish to trade a little harshness for handling and life?
That's a relief, it didn't seem quite right. Of course I'm mixing it up with that other triumph of aerodynamics, the Bedford HA van.
Their engines were pretty good too, just a shame about everything else.
I *do* like the 3p and wouldn't mind another one.
You're a 'Wino' with defective vision then? Get a job and stop sponging.
Next you'll be fancying wayne rooney, we all know scousers are pig ugly, but something even his mother won't admit to producing a fat idiot as ugly as that.
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