History

Triumph: The Complete History

Introduction

Triumph began in 1886 as a London import and export business run by a young German, Siegfried Bettmann. Over the next century the name was carried by bicycles, motorcycles and, from 1923 to 1984, cars. This is the story of the car company, told chronologically, from the first Triumph 10/20 to the last Acclaim, with the deepest attention on the Standard-Triumph and British Leyland years that produced the TRs, the Spitfire, the 2000 and the Stag.

The early chapters also cover the bicycles and motorcycles, because the car company grew out of them. From 1936 the motorcycle business was a separate company, and it has had nothing to do with the cars since.

How this history is sourced. Dates and figures have been checked against more than one source wherever possible. The principal sources are period reports in Motor Sport, Grace's Guide, Hansard, AROnline's year-by-year Rover-Triumph history, the British Motor Museum and the one-make clubs: the Pre-1940 Triumph Motor Club, the Triumph Razoredge Owners Club, the Triumph Mayflower Club, the TR Register, the Triumph 2000 Register, the Triumph Sports Six Club and the Stag Owners Club. Wikipedia was used only as a lead. Where respected sources disagree, the text says so. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.

1886 to 1923: from bicycles to the first Triumph car

Siegfried Bettmann

Siegfried Bettmann was born in Nuremberg on 18 April 1863, the son of a timber merchant. The most detailed account, Gordon Maycock's history for the Historical Association, has him arriving in London in late October 1883; other sources give 1884 or 1885. He worked for the directory publisher Kelly's and then for the White Sewing Machine Company before striking out on his own.

From a small office in Coleman Street in the City of London, S. Bettmann & Co. sold German goods in England and English bicycles on the Continent. In 1886 Bettmann adopted the trade name Triumph for bicycles made for him by William Andrews of Birmingham. A fellow German, Mauritz Johann Schulte, became his partner in 1886 or 1887; Schulte had worked at Andrews' factory and pushed for Triumph to make its own machines.

Coventry

Coventry was then the centre of the British cycle trade. Triumph took a factory at 11 to 13 Much Park Street, rented at £150 a year, and the first Coventry-built Triumph bicycles appeared in 1889. Bettmann moved to the city that November.

In May 1895, with investment from the du Cros family of the Dunlop tyre company, the business was floated as the New Triumph Cycle Company. Bettmann was naturalised as a British subject on 9 March 1895 and married Annie Meyrick that July. A German subsidiary followed in Nuremberg in 1896.

Motorcycles, 1902

Triumph's first motorcycle, in 1902, was a strengthened bicycle with a 2.25 hp engine bought from Minerva of Belgium. Sales passed 500 in 1903. In 1905 Triumph built its own engine, a 3 hp single, and more than 250 were made that year. In 1907 the company moved into a larger works in Priory Street and built 1,000 motorcycles; by 1909 it was making 3,000 a year.

Bettmann was also a public figure. He was elected to Coventry City Council in 1903, became President of the Coventry Chamber of Commerce in 1907 and, around 1910 to 1912, bought a large stake in the Standard Motor Company and became its chairman. Standard would buy the Triumph name more than thirty years later.

Mayor of Coventry, 1913

On 10 November 1913 Bettmann was installed as Mayor of Coventry, a German-born man leading an English city. In June 1914 Andrew Carnegie visited and Bettmann met him at the station.

Most accounts say anti-German feeling ended his civic career when war broke out that August. The council's own minutes show something more complicated: on 10 June 1914, before the war began, a committee asked him to withdraw a resignation he had already offered. He was still a councillor in 1915, when he was challenged after the sinking of the Lusitania. What is not in doubt is that the war made public life very hard for him.

The Trusty Triumph

The war made Triumph's name. The 550 cc Model H, introduced in 1915 and credited by the Science Museum to Schulte, became the standard machine of British dispatch riders. Around 30,000 were supplied to the Allied forces, about 20,000 of them to Britain. The advertising line "Trusty Triumph" stuck. By 1918 Triumph was Britain's largest motorcycle maker.

Holbrook and the move into cars

In 1919 Schulte left after disagreements with Bettmann, with a payment of £15,000. His successor as general manager was Claude Holbrook, who had bought motorcycles for the War Office during the war. Holbrook persuaded Bettmann to build cars.

In 1921 Triumph bought the works of the short-lived Dawson Car Company in Clay Lane, Stoke, Coventry. Dawson had built only about 70 cars. Two years later, in 1923, the first Triumph car appeared there: the 10/20, with a 1,393 cc four-cylinder engine. Grace's Guide records that the car was designed for Triumph by Lea-Francis, which was paid a royalty on every one sold.

1923 to 1939: the Triumph Motor Company

Hydraulic brakes and the Fifteen

The 10/20 was followed in 1924 by the 13/35 (also recorded as the 13/30) and in 1926 by the Fifteen, whose 2,169 cc engine was larger than any Triumph would use again until the 1960s. Triumph was among the very first British makers to fit hydraulic brakes, made by Lockheed. Whether the first British car to have them was the 13/35, an early 10/20 or a Horstman has been argued in the pages of Motor Sport since the 1970s, and the Pre-1940 Triumph Motor Club's own records suggest the 13/35 may never have gone into full production.

The Super Seven, 1927

The car that made Triumph a volume maker was the Super Seven of 1927, a small car with an 832 cc side-valve engine and hydraulic brakes, priced from £149 10s. It was built in a long list of body styles, from tourers to fabric saloons and the two-seat Gnat. A supercharged sports version tested by Motor Sport in December 1929 reached 75 mph. Production figures vary: the Pre-1940 club records just under 15,000 Super Sevens, and other sources give about 17,000 including the Super Eight that followed.

In 1929 the German subsidiary was made an independent company, and around 1930 the word "Cycle" was dropped from the company's name. A rally driver named Donald Healey drove a Super Seven to seventh place overall in the 1930 Monte Carlo Rally, the best British result.

Going upmarket

Holbrook decided that Triumph's future lay in better, more expensive cars. The Super Nine of 1931 used a 1,018 cc engine designed by Coventry Climax and built by Triumph under licence, with overhead inlet and side exhaust valves. The six-cylinder Scorpion and the sporting Southern Cross followed. Walter Belgrove, who had joined in 1927 as a draughtsman, became chief stylist in 1934.

Motor Sport reported Healey's appointment as Triumph's experimental manager in December 1933 (some sources give 1934), and he became technical director, responsible for the cars until 1939. Bettmann stood down as managing director in 1933 and retired as vice-chairman in 1934.

The Gloria

The Gloria, introduced in August 1933, was Triumph's main range of the mid-1930s. It came with four- and six-cylinder Climax-designed engines from 1,087 cc to 1,991 cc and in a wide range of saloons, tourers and coupes, including the twin-carburettor Gloria Vitesse. From 1935 Glorias were built at a second works in Holbrook Lane, a former White & Poppe factory.

The Gloria made its name in rallying. In the 1934 Monte Carlo Rally Healey drove a 1,232 cc Gloria from Athens to third place overall and first in the 1½-litre class, and all seven Triumphs entered finished. Motor Sport reported that the car "did not require the opening of the tool kit during the whole journey".

The Dolomite Straight Eight

Healey's most ambitious project was a supercharged two-litre twin-cam straight-eight, closely based on the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 and shown at the 1934 Motor Show. In the 1935 Monte Carlo Rally his car was hit by a train at a level crossing in Denmark. Motor Sport reported that the car was destroyed but that Healey and his mechanic were thrown clear.

Factory work stopped in April 1935 and the parts were sold to High Speed Motors. Sources differ on how many were made; the safest statement is that three chassis and parts for six engines existed, and that only one car was completed by the factory. In January 1936 Healey drove a straight-eight, running without its supercharger, to eighth overall in the Monte Carlo Rally, the highest-placed of the British cars.

The 1936 split

By the mid-1930s the company could not afford both cars and motorcycles. On 22 January 1936 the motorcycle business was sold to Jack Sangster of Ariel and became the Triumph Engineering Company, with Edward Turner as general manager and chief designer. Turner's Speed Twin followed in 1937. The bicycle business was sold separately; Grace's Guide gives both 1932 and 1936. From this point the Triumph cars and the Triumph motorcycles were made by different companies.

The Dolomite and receivership

The car company's new range, launched as the Dolomite in July 1936, had overhead-valve engines and a striking "waterfall" grille designed by Belgrove. The Vitesse ran alongside it, and the Dolomite Roadster Coupe, announced in March 1938, was built in small numbers, perhaps 170 to 200.

The range was too wide and the volumes too small. In July 1939 the Triumph Motor Company went into receivership, and its factory, equipment and goodwill were offered for sale. They were bought by Thos. W. Ward of Sheffield, an engineering and ship-breaking firm, which made Healey general manager. A handful of cars were built before the war stopped production.

Siegfried Bettmann lived to see the name pass to Standard. He died on 23 September 1951, aged 88, and was buried in Canley Cemetery in Coventry.

1939 to 1959: Standard takes over and the TR is born

War and the Blitz

The war ended car production almost as soon as Ward had bought the company. Healey stayed into the war before leaving; he later founded his own car company.

On the night of 14 November 1940 the German air raid on Coventry destroyed the Priory Street works, by then the motorcycle factory of Triumph Engineering. Most of its records were lost, and the motorcycle company moved to Meriden, where it was building again by 1942. The car company's premises were bombed too, though sources disagree on which of its sites was worst hit; a forum account suggests part of the Holbrook Lane works still stands.

Sir John Black buys the name

The Standard Motor Company of Canley had a good war. It built Mosquito fighter-bombers, Airspeed Oxford trainers and aero engines, and its managing director, John Black, was knighted in 1943. Black was also looking ahead. Before the war Standard had supplied engines to William Lyons for his SS cars, and an account published in Motor in 1976 says that after falling out with Lyons, Black wanted a range of his own to compete with Jaguar.

In November 1944 Standard agreed to buy the Triumph name and what remained of the company for £75,000; one source dates the final payment to 31 December 1945. The new subsidiary, Triumph Motor Company (1945) Ltd, built its cars at Canley. In 1945 Standard also agreed to build Ferguson tractors in the former shadow factory at Banner Lane. The first TE20 came off the line on 6 July 1946, and the tractors would carry the company's finances for more than a decade.

Razor edges and the Roadster, 1946

Triumph's first post-war cars were announced in 1946: the 1800 Roadster and the 1800 Town and Country saloon. Both used a 1,776 cc overhead-valve engine that Standard had built before the war for Lyons's SS Jaguar.

Steel was rationed, so the Roadster's body was mostly aluminium over an ash frame, formed with rubber press tools that had been used during the war for aircraft panels. It is described as the last production car with a dickey seat. 2,501 1800 Roadsters were built, followed by 2,000 of the 2000 Roadster, which from 1948 used the 2,088 cc engine of the Standard Vanguard. Roadster production ended in October 1949.

The saloons had sharp-edged "razor-edge" coachwork, built by Mulliners of Birmingham in aluminium over a wooden frame. About 4,000 1800 saloons were made, then 2,000 with the Vanguard engine in 1949. The Renown, launched in October 1949, carried the style on; 6,501 were built to the end of 1951, then about 2,800 of a longer-wheelbase version until October 1954, plus 190 limousines.

The Mayflower

The Mayflower, announced on 28 September 1949, was Black's attempt at a small razor-edge car for America. It had a 1,247 cc side-valve engine, a body built by Fisher & Ludlow and a name chosen to appeal to American buyers. It did not: only 510 were sold in North America. About 34,000 to 35,000 were built, including ten drophead coupes, before production ended in July 1953.

A sports car prototype, the TRX, was shown in 1950. Designed by Walter Belgrove, it was too expensive to build, and only three were made.

The TR2, 1953

Standard's next attempt at a sports car was the 20TS, shown at the Earls Court Motor Show in October 1952. It was not good enough. Ken Richardson, recruited in 1952 to develop it, is quoted as calling it "bloody awful", and the car was quickly reworked. The result, the TR2, was introduced at the Geneva show in March 1953 with a 1,991 cc four-cylinder engine developed from the Vanguard's, giving 90 bhp.

Triumph proved its speed in public. On 20 May 1953, on the Jabbeke highway in Belgium, Richardson drove the TR2 registered MVC 575 at 124.889 mph (some sources, including Hagerty, give 124.899) in "speed trim", with a small screen, a metal tonneau and an undertray. In touring trim with overdrive it reached 114.9 mph. Production began at Canley that summer.

The TR2 succeeded at once in competition. Johnny Wallwork won the RAC Rally outright in March 1954, with TR2s also second and fifth. A works team won the manufacturers' team prize in the 1954 Alpine Rally. At Le Mans a private TR2 finished 15th in 1954, and in 1955 all three works cars finished, 14th, 15th and 19th. 8,636 TR2s were built.

A change at the top

Late in 1953 Black was injured in an accident while demonstrating a Swallow Doretti sports car. In January 1954 the board, led by Alick Dick, asked him to resign, officially on grounds of ill health. Dick became managing director.

Dick inherited a serious problem. Standard bought many of its bodies from Fisher & Ludlow, which the British Motor Corporation, its biggest rival, had taken over in 1953. Over the following years Dick bought body and component makers of his own: Mulliners in 1958, and in 1959 Hall Engineering, which had a body plant at Speke near Liverpool.

TR3 and TR3A

The TR3, introduced in October 1955, gained more power, and from October 1956 it had Girling front disc brakes. It is often called the first British series-production car with front discs as standard; that is a fair description, though Jensen announced four-wheel discs on its 541 De Luxe the same autumn. In the 1956 Alpine Rally six works TRs won five Coupes des Alpes and the team prize.

Of 13,377 TR3s, only 1,286 were sold in Britain. The TR3A, built from September 1957 to October 1961, was even more an export car: 58,236 were made, the great majority for North America.

Michelotti

In 1957 Standard found the designer who would shape its cars for the next twenty years. In Graham Robson's account, a British businessman, Raymond Flower, offered the company cheap Italian styling; Harry Webster, director of engineering from 1957, and Alick Dick persuaded him to name his source, and hired Giovanni Michelotti directly. A Michelotti-styled TR3 show car appeared at Geneva in March 1957.

In 1959 the tractor business, which had funded so much, was sold to Massey-Ferguson on 31 August, and that September the company was renamed Standard-Triumph International.

1959 to 1968: Leyland, Michelotti and the great Triumph range

The Herald, 1959

The Herald was designed around the body problem. With Fisher & Ludlow in BMC's hands, Harry Webster proposed a separate backbone chassis that could carry body sections bought from smaller suppliers. Michelotti styled it. Launched at the Royal Albert Hall on 22 April 1959 at nearly £700 including purchase tax, it had swing-axle independent rear suspension and a 25-foot turning circle.

A convertible followed in 1960 and the 1,147 cc Herald 1200 in April 1961, then the 12/50 and the 13/60. By the end of production in 1971, 510,614 Heralds had been built. The Herald chassis also carried the six-cylinder Vitesse from May 1962, and the Spitfire and GT6 were developed from it.

Speke

On 9 February 1960 Standard-Triumph announced an £11 million car plant at Speke on Merseyside, to employ about 4,500 people within three years, next to the Hall Engineering works it had bought in 1959. The enlarged Hall works became Speke No. 1, making body panels and shells for the Herald, Vitesse, TR4, 1300 and 1500. The new plant stalled for lack of money; work restarted in 1966, and it opened in 1969 as Speke No. 2. The full story of the two Speke plants and the Stag is told in Building the Stag at Speke.

Leyland, 1961

By 1960 the company was running short of money. On 14 November Sir Henry Spurrier of Leyland Motors, the truck and bus maker, telephoned Alick Dick, and on 5 December 1960 Leyland's bid was made public, valuing Standard-Triumph at nearly £18 million. Spurrier confirmed the purchase to stockholders on 31 January 1961.

Leyland found the business in worse shape than it expected. In August 1961 most of the board was dismissed and Dick resigned. Stanley Markland became managing director and Donald Stokes of Leyland joined the board. In January 1962 Leyland reported that Standard-Triumph had lost £1,470,792 since the takeover, and Spurrier said Leyland had "almost certainly saved" it from bankruptcy. The last Standard car built for Britain, an Ensign, left Canley in May 1963. From then on the cars were Triumphs.

Spitfire and TR4

Among the projects Leyland found was "Bomb", a small sports car built on Herald parts in Michelotti's Turin studio from September 1960 and then set aside for lack of money. Leyland approved its tooling in July 1961. It was launched as the Spitfire 4 at the London Motor Show in October 1962, with a 1,147 cc engine, front disc brakes and independent rear suspension. After a cut in purchase tax it cost £641.

The TR4, developed from Michelotti's Zest and Zoom prototypes, went into production on 18 July 1961. It had a 2,138 cc engine, wind-up windows and rack-and-pinion steering, with bodies made at Speke and final assembly at Canley. Of 40,253 built, 37,661 were exported. The TR4A, shown at Geneva in March 1965, added independent rear suspension, although some American cars kept a live axle.

The Triumph 2000, 1963

The car that moved Triumph upmarket was the 2000, project "Barb", styled by Michelotti from 1961. It was unveiled on 15 October 1963, about a week after the rival Rover 2000, and went on sale in January 1964 at £1,094, against £1,265 for the Rover. It had a 1,998 cc six-cylinder engine and all-independent suspension, and an estate followed in 1965. The 2000 family, which grew to include the fuel-injected 2.5 PI, ran until 1977.

Competition

Under Graham Robson, who ran the competition programme from 1962 to 1965, works Triumphs raced and rallied widely. At Le Mans in 1965 Spitfires finished 13th and 14th overall and first and second in their class. The 2000 was rallied from 1964. Later, in 1970, Brian Culcheth finished second overall in the London to Mexico World Cup Rally in a 2.5 PI.

Front-wheel drive and the GT6

The Triumph 1300, announced on 15 October 1965, was Leyland's first front-wheel-drive design, with its engine mounted lengthways above the gearbox. 113,008 were built, plus 35,342 of the twin-carburettor 1300TC. The GT6, a fastback coupe with the 1,998 cc six, entered production in July 1966.

The Stag project

The Stag began as Michelotti's idea. He asked Harry Webster for a used Triumph 2000 to experiment with, and was sent one in June 1964 or June 1965; sources disagree. Michelotti turned it into a four-seat open car, intended as a show car for his own stand. When Webster saw it, he took it for Triumph.

On 10 February 1966 Webster told the board that Michelotti's design "matched the company's requirements exactly". On 7 July 1966 the board considered a formal proposal for "a luxury-type sports car built on a shortened Triumph 2000 chassis", to start with a 2.5-litre six "with provision for a V8 engine in due course". The first prototype, X763, ran in 1967 with the six.

Triumph's V8 came from a plan set out in 1963 by Lewis Dawtrey: a new overhead-camshaft slant-four, and a V8 made by pairing two of them on a common crankshaft. When Rover joined Leyland in 1967, Stokes asked whether Rover's V8 could be used instead. Webster reported that the Rover V8 would not fit because of its height. Spen King later added that there was not the production capacity to supply V8s for the Stag as well.

TR5 and the road to British Leyland

The TR5 PI, announced on 3 October 1967, had a 2,498 cc six with Lucas fuel injection and 150 bhp. Triumph claimed it as the first British production sports car with petrol injection. Only 2,947 were built; 8,484 of the carburettor TR250 were built for America.

Leyland bought Rover in 1967. On 17 January 1968 a merger with British Motor Holdings, BMC and Jaguar's parent, was announced, and the British Leyland Motor Corporation formally came into being on 14 May 1968. Triumph went into its Specialist Car Division with Rover and Jaguar, and Donald Stokes, who had first learned the car business at Triumph, became chief executive under Sir George Harriman, succeeding him as chairman later in 1968.

1968 to 1977: British Leyland, the TR6 and the Stag

New engineers

In 1968 Harry Webster moved to run engineering at Austin-Morris, and Spen King, who had led new-vehicle projects at Rover, took his place at Triumph. One of King's first decisions concerned the Stag: its V8, planned at 2.5 litres, lacked torque at low speeds, so he had it enlarged to 3.0 litres. The same family of overhead-camshaft engines brought outside business too: from 1968 Triumph supplied its slant-four to Saab for the 99.

TR6

The TR6 was the TR5 with new front and rear styling by Karmann of Osnabrück. Spen King recalled that Karmann approached Triumph when its own engineering department was overloaded, and offered to design and make the new panels in time. The first production TR6 was built on 19 September 1968, the same day as the last TR5, and the car was announced in January 1969.

The fuel-injected TR6 gave 150 bhp until 1973 and 125 bhp after, and was sold until February 1975. A carburettor version, with 104 to 106 bhp, was built for North America until 14 July 1976. The TR Register gives total production as 91,850, the most of any TR until the TR7.

The Stag, 1970

The Stag was launched on 9 June 1970, about two years later than first planned, because Triumph chose to wait for its own V8 rather than launch with the six. The 2,997 cc overhead-camshaft V8 gave 145 bhp. The car came with a T-bar roll-over hoop, a soft top, a hardtop or both, power steering and electric windows. The soft-top cost £1,995 17s 6d. Motor Sport's test car, with overdrive, reached 117 mph and 60 mph in 10.7 seconds.

Stag bodies were built, painted and trimmed at Speke No. 2 and taken by road to Canley for final assembly. The car went to America in 1971, priced at $5,773 with hardtop against $6,950 for a V12 E-Type convertible, but it was withdrawn from the US market in 1973 after fewer than 3,000 had been sold there.

Annual output never approached the original target of about 12,000 a year. AROnline records 3,901 Stags in 1971, 4,504 in 1972 and 5,508 in 1973; the Stag Owners Club gives 3,442 for 1974, 2,898 for 1975 and about 1,800 in the final year. The names Mk1 (1970 to 1973) and Mk2 (1973 to 1977) were coined by enthusiasts after production ended; the factory made a series of changes for the 1973 model year.

The V8 became known for its problems. AROnline lists timing chains needing renewal about every 25,000 miles, cylinder heads that warped through overheating, and water-pump drive gears that sheared. Spen King maintained there had been few engine problems in development. With BL short of money, there was no budget to put them right.

Toledo, Dolomite and the Sprint

The early 1970s brought a new family of smaller saloons. The Toledo, announced in August 1970, was a rear-wheel-drive version of the 1300 body; the front-wheel-drive 1500 arrived at the same time. The Dolomite, with Triumph's 1,854 cc slant-four, was shown in October 1971, though it did not reach showrooms in real numbers until late 1972. The Spitfire Mk IV and GT6 Mk3, restyled by Michelotti with Stag cues, appeared in late 1970. The big saloons had been restyled a year earlier: the 2000 and 2.5 PI Mk2 of October 1969 had a longer nose inspired by the Stag, with body tooling supplied by Karmann.

The Spitfire outlived almost every other Triumph. After the Mk2 of 1964, the 1,296 cc Mk3 of 1967, the Mk IV and the 1500 of 1974, it was built until 1980, and more than 300,000 were made. The GT6 ended in December 1973 after about 41,000 had been built in three versions.

In March 1972 Rover and Triumph were formally merged as Rover Triumph, with Spen King as technical director. On 19 June 1973 Triumph launched the Dolomite Sprint, with a 1,998 cc 16-valve cylinder head worked by a single camshaft, giving 127 bhp, for £1,740. The head won a Design Council award in 1974. The Sprint is often called the first mass-produced car with a multi-valve engine; the safest description is that it was among the first, since the Lotus-engined Jensen-Healey reached the market a year earlier. 22,941 Sprints were built.

The Sprint was a winner on the track. In 1975 Andy Rouse won the British Saloon Car Championship outright in a Broadspeed-run Dolomite Sprint.

The TR7 and the crisis of 1975

The TR7, codenamed "Bullet" and styled by Harris Mann, was planned from 1969 as a single replacement for the TR6 and GT6. Its first prototype was finished in October 1972. Production began in September 1974 at Speke No. 2, the plant that also built the bodies for the Stag and the TR6, and the car was launched in North America in January 1975 and in Britain on 19 May 1976. It was a wedge-shaped coupe with a 1,998 cc four-cylinder engine.

British Leyland was by then in financial crisis. On 6 December 1974 Tony Benn, the Industry Secretary, announced a government guarantee and an inquiry led by Sir Don Ryder. The Ryder Report reached the government on 26 March 1975. Rover Triumph was merged into Leyland Cars in May 1975, and in August British Leyland became a company in which the government was the majority shareholder.

Tony Pond joined Leyland in 1976 to lead its rally team, and the V8-engined TR7 he drove from 1978 was described by Lancia's Daniele Audetto as "maybe the best in the World for tarmac".

The end of the big Triumphs

The Toledo name was dropped in March 1976, when all the small saloons became Dolomites. The fuel-injected 2.5 PI had already given way to the carburettor 2500TC and 2500S, and the last of the big 2000 and 2500 saloons was built in May 1977, after about 316,000 had been made since 1963. Their place in the range went to the Rover SD1, and a planned new small Triumph saloon, SD2, had been cancelled in 1975.

On 24 June 1977 the Stag followed them out of production. AROnline's yearly history gives the total as 25,939, and the Stag Owners Club agrees; other sources, including AROnline's own development history, give 25,877. The Stag had cost too much to put right, and BL could not justify a unique engine for a car that sold in such small numbers.

1977 to 1984 and after: the last Triumphs

Speke closes, 1978

Michael Edwardes started as chairman of British Leyland on 1 November 1977. The same day, about 1,500 workers at Speke No. 2 walked out over new manning levels introduced without local agreement. The strike lasted about four months. On 15 February 1978 BL announced that the plant would close. In the Commons, the Industry Secretary, Eric Varley, said: "The decision on Speke was taken by the management." Around 3,000 jobs went, and the plant closed officially on 26 May 1978.

TR7 assembly moved to Canley, where the first car was built on 2 October 1978, now with a five-speed gearbox. Where the bodies came from after Speke is less clear in print. John Barron, a production engineer who worked in both Speke plants, recalls that TR7 bodies came from Swindon; Ate Up With Motor's history agrees that stampings came from Pressed Steel Fisher at Swindon. AROnline records that Speke No. 1 continued to make pressings for the TR7 and Dolomite. Published sources do not settle which parts came from which plant.

The closure also ended two TR7 offshoots: the 16-valve TR7 Sprint, of which only about 60 were built, and the Lynx 2+2.

Canley closes, 1980

The TR7 convertible went on sale in America in 1979 and in Britain in 1980, and the TR8, with Rover's 3.5-litre V8, followed in America in 1980. The V8 rally TR7 won the Ypres and Manx rallies in 1978, and Tony Pond and Fred Gallagher won the Manx again in September 1980, nearly four minutes clear. BL ended the rally programme at the end of that year.

Edwardes's recovery plan of September 1979 included closing Canley. The last Dolomite and the last Spitfire were built there on 26 August 1980, and TR7 assembly moved to Solihull, alongside the Rover SD1. Canley, Triumph's home since 1945, built no more cars.

The last TR, 1981

The last TR7 was built at Solihull on 5 October 1981, ending the TR series that had begun with the TR2 in 1953. Grace's Guide gives 112,375 TR7s; figures for the TR8 range from about 2,500 to 2,800. A week later BL announced that the Speke No. 1 body plant would also close.

The Acclaim

On 17 May 1979 BL and Honda had announced a joint project, and the agreement was signed on 26 December 1979. The result, the Triumph Acclaim, was launched on 7 October 1981 at the Motorfair in London, two days after the last TR7. It was a version of the Honda Ballade with a 1,335 cc Honda engine, built at Cowley, and Motor Sport described it at launch as the first Japanese-designed car built in the European Community.

133,625 Acclaims were built. It was replaced in 1984 by the Rover 200, and the Triumph name disappeared from new cars that summer. The British Motor Museum holds a 1984 Acclaim CD automatic, described as the last car to carry the Triumph name.

The name since 1984

The Triumph car name passed with the Rover Group to British Aerospace in 1988 and to BMW in 1994. When BMW sold Rover and MG in 2000, it kept the Triumph name, with MINI, Riley and Standard. BMW has registered Triumph trademarks since, and in 2023 the design house Makkina showed a TR25 concept car based on a BMW i3s, but no new Triumph car has been built.

The Triumph motorcycles that are made today have no connection with the car name. Triumph Engineering went through the Meriden workers' co-operative of the 1970s; in 1983 John Bloor bought the name and rights from the receiver and later built a new factory at Hinckley.

The Canley works served as a technical centre after 1980 and was largely demolished in the 1990s. Part of the Speke site became a trading park. In September 2014, forty TR7s gathered at Speke to mark the car's fortieth anniversary.

The cars have outlived the company. The Stag Owners Club, founded on 6 November 1979, has a register of about 16,000 Stags.

Timeline

Triumph at a glance, from Bettmann's first bicycles to the last Triumph car.

Year	Event
1886	Siegfried Bettmann adopts the Triumph name in London
1889	First Triumph bicycles made in Coventry
1902	First Triumph motorcycle
1915	Model H, the "Trusty Triumph", goes to war
1921	Triumph buys the Dawson car works in Clay Lane
1923	First Triumph car, the 10/20
1927	Super Seven launched
1933	Gloria launched; Donald Healey joins
1936	Motorcycle business sold to Jack Sangster
1939	Receivership; bought by Thos. W. Ward
1940	Priory Street works destroyed in the Coventry Blitz
1944	Standard agrees to buy the Triumph name
1946	1800 Roadster and razor-edge saloon
1953	TR2 launched; 124.889 mph at Jabbeke
1959	Herald launched; Standard-Triumph International formed
1961	Leyland takes over; TR4 launched
1962	Spitfire launched
1963	Triumph 2000 launched; last Standard car
1968	British Leyland formed
1970	Stag launched
1973	Dolomite Sprint launched
1974	TR7 production begins at Speke
1977	Last Stag and last big saloons built
1978	Speke No. 2 plant closes
1980	Canley closes; last Spitfire and Dolomite
1981	Last TR7; Acclaim launched
1984	Last Triumph car, the Acclaim

After 1984: the name passed to British Aerospace in 1988 and to BMW in 1994, which kept it when it sold Rover in 2000.

Sources

The main sources opened for this history, grouped by chapter. Wikipedia was used only as a lead and cross-checked.

1886 to 1923

1923 to 1939

1939 to 1959

1959 to 1968

1968 to 1977

1977 to today