Triumph Cars 100 Years

This is a complete history of an automobile company that began rather benignly importing sewing machines into England in the late 1800’s, while Queen Victoria was on still on the throne, and subsequently went on through the fiendish years of World War 1 (1914-18) to make and market their own line bicycles and utterly reliable motorbikes (some 300,000 were purchased by the Allies alone) before launching production and sales of their first motorcar in 1923. By 1930 the Triumph Cycle Company had become the Triumph Motor Company well on its way to establishing seven decades of motoring excellence.

As mentioned, Alkureishi’s book give us history of Triumph including several little-known sedans such as the Triumph 10/20 and the Mayflower followed much later by the graceful Triumph 1800 roadster and the slightly faster 2000. Although under new management Triumph prospered during the dark and gloomy 1920’s and 1930’s, even entering and winning on the highly competitive Rally scene including the Light Car Class in the 1935 Monte Carlo Rally.

As the second World War broke out in September 1939, Triumph reverted to a war footing again by halting automobile production and reverting to motorcycles.

Again, they were successful selling and estimated 50, 000 units to the Allies. Post-War Britain was slow to recover, and Triumph was sold to Leyland Motors in 1960 becoming part of the giant conglomerate British Leyland (BL) in 1968 joining Austin, Morris and MG along with Jaguar and Rover. But not before that they launched the fabulous TR2 Roadster setting the British sportscar mark even higher.

The terrific TR2 and TR3 and later the Triumph Spitfire was my era.  These were the used sports cars of my youth and while they were certainly noisy with rattles and squeaks threatening to drown out the engine and the soft top leaked as did the plastic “side curtains” (windows) – but they were fast, sturdy, and simply the best. To we relatively unsophisticated Welsh louts they were our “crumpet gatherers” as Stirling Moss once described the sleek “E” Type Jag a few years later.

With a nod to the author of the fly-leaf blurb’s final chapter “From that1923 steel-paneled 10/20 through a range of roasters, sedans and sports cars, Triumph Cars offers a definitive history of an iconic British marque.

For me, the book excels in presenting hundreds of historic, contemporary, and action-packed racing photographs as well as detailed text and exhaustive specification charts. This is one volume (really two as I also reccomend Ross Alkureishi’s ‘The complete Book of Classic MG Cars – Motorbooks 2002) as one that no sportscar enthusiast should be without.