The Car / Design
Design & Michelotti
The Stag is the resolution of an unusual brief: a four-seat, open car with the roll-over protection of a coupé, built quickly on hardware Triumph already had. Michelotti's answer: a shortened Triumph 2000 floorpan wrapped in a convertible body with a fixed T-bar over the cabin, is what gives the car its silhouette.
The T-bar
The Stag's most recognisable feature is the fixed T-bar: a hoop over the cabin joined fore-and-aft to the windscreen surround. It functions as a roll-over structure and stiffens what would otherwise be a large open body, while allowing the car to be used as a full convertible, with a soft-top, or with the factory hardtop fitted.
A four-seat convertible
Unlike the two-seat TR range, the Stag was drawn from the outset as a full four-seat car, usable by a family, comfortable for touring, and intended to compete for buyers who might otherwise have looked at a Mercedes-Benz SL.
A shortened 2000 floorpan
The car sits on a shortened version of the Triumph 2000 saloon's floorpan. That donor decision explains a great deal about the finished Stag: its independent suspension all round, its stance, and the fact that Michelotti was able to produce a drivable prototype quickly enough for Triumph to notice.
Positioned against the SL
Triumph's ambition was explicit. The Stag was intended as a luxury grand tourer to sit above the TR range and to rival the Mercedes-Benz SL, a British answer, at a British price, to the German four-seat convertible of the era.