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    TRIUMPH - Guide
    TRIUMPH - Guide
    TRIUMPH - Guide
    Ebook150 pages1 hour

    TRIUMPH - Guide

    By Dave Allen and Dick Strome

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    About this ebook

    ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION (1959): “ … The Triumph Company has apparently always been in a hurry to get from one place to another. It began as a manufacturer of cycles back in the leisurely days of 1895.
    Triumph had established an excellent reputation for its motorcycles. Before World War I they had earned the rather apt sobriquet: “Frisky.”
    One can well imagine that with speedy, reliable motorcycles tooling about the countryside making a name for themselves, a light car would loom next on the horizon for Triumph. This was exactly the case.
    In 1931, the Triumph Cycle Company, having at last decided that they were in the automobile business for good, shortened their name to The Triumph Company…”
    The legendary TR series of sports cars, competition results, tuning and maintenance for everyday and racing.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdizioni Savine
    Release dateJul 11, 2014
    ISBN9788896365533
    TRIUMPH - Guide

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      Book preview

      TRIUMPH - Guide - Dave Allen

      TRIUMPH

      Guide

      by DAVE ALLEN and DICK STROME

      New digital edition of:

      TRIUMPH Guide

      by DAVE ALLEN and DICK STROME

      © 1959 by Sport Car Press

      Copyright © 2014 Edizioni Savine

      All Rights Reserved

      Strada provinciale 1 del Tronto

      64010 – Ancarano (TE) – Italy

      email: [email protected]

      web: www.edizionisavine.it

      www.automotorebook.com

      Source text and images taken from the Public Domain

      NOTES

      ISBN 978-88-96365-53-3

      CONTENTS

      TITLE

      colophon

      Contents

      1. THE GENDARME WHO GOOFED

      Triumph Meets Peugeot

      2. THE STANDARDS

      Enter The Rhyl

      The Flying Standard

      3. THE TRIUMPHS

      End of The Cycle

      The Ill-Fated Dolomite Super Sports

      4. THE STANDARD-TRIUMPH COMBINE AND HOW IT GREW—RESTLESS

      5. BUTTERCUP

      6. THE TR’S, AND COMPETITION RESULTS

      SOME OF THE MAIN SUCCESSES RECORDED BY TR-2, TR-3, and STANDARD TEN - Jabbeke Tests

      7. TUNING AND MAINTENANCE FOR EVERYDAY AND COMPETITION

      8. THE TSOA

      9. WHAT NEXT?

      Marseilles—Last minute tuning just before the start of the 1958 Alpine Rally.

      1. THE GENDARME WHO GOOFED

      Somewhere in the Maritime Alps is a gendarme who goofed. He’s the reason I didn’t come in third in the 1958 Alpine Rally! The speaker was Bob Halmi, the Hungarian-American photographer-sports car driver.

      The time was July, 1958. There had been fewer cars starting in this Alpine than ever before. Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of cars had entered. But this was the toughest Alpine yet. One look at the proposed course had been enough to cause several teams to retreat to their respective factories. Private owners had smiled sadly to themselves and gone fishing. On the trial runs, too many had found that the required average speed was almost impossible to maintain. Fifty-eight cars finally started from the Mille Miglia type ramp on July 7th. Only 18 were to finish.

      The Marseilles Automobile Club had outlined a route of 2,800 miles, to be covered at an average speed of 60 kph. Only one-tenth of the road course was flat surface. The rest was a nightmare of twisting, narrow, unpaved mountain roads where guard rails were rare. To pep up the event, four speed tests and four hill climbs were included in the scoring.

      You may well ask yourself, "Is this a rally?"

      Halmi will tell you: In Europe, a sports car rally is as far removed from an American rally as a Sunday drive is from a road race. Precision clocks, computers and charts are unnecessary. You drive flat out, and usually you are still late. If, by a miracle, you arrive early, you are allowed to wait at the check point and punch in when your arrival time comes up. This rarely happens. Usually, because of the small time allowance between check points, you keep your engine running while your co-driver runs to the time clock and punches in. Then you’re in second by the time he has the door closed again.

      Six TR-3’s were entered in this wild affair. Three comprised the factory team; one car was driven by a woman’s team; two others were private entries. Of these last two, Bob Halmi of New York City and Dick Smith of Quakertown, Pa. were the only Americans.

      All of the cars entered had been prepared by Ken Richardson, Triumph’s competition manager. He had modified the co-driver’s seat so it could be made into a bed, installed steel plates under the sump, put in an extra coil and an extra fuel pump. There were extra headlights mounted in front, and each hardtop had a spotlight on the roof. It’s no wonder, considering all the careful preparation and hours of extra time put in at the works in Coventry, that TR’s show up so often in the winners’ circle. And Halmi really would have been third . . .

      He had done quite well in the first speed test, the Road Course at Monza. To avoid penalty in the over-1600 cc class, the average speed required for this trial was 90 mph. For every second above the required time, there were bonus points. Halmi amassed 95 extra points for his car. Leadfooting his way around the course, he averaged 100.7 miles per hour. This was enough to make him the winner of the leg.

      By the time the Rally had pulled out of Monza, 20 cars were out of the running. Maurice Gatsonides, the favored Triumph driver, had run into some hard luck. He was up for a Gold Cup (three consecutive finishes without penalty points), but his brake line had been cut by a protruding rock, and, in desperation, he was trying to continue without brakes.

      His solution was a novel one. He knew that the handbrake on a TR-3 was powerful enough to stop the car even with all the other brakes gone. He figured that all he had to do was yell Brake! to his co-driver and the willing cohort would pull, the car would slow down, they would tear around the curve and continue. This theory worked quite well for some time. Then the factor of human failing asserted itself. Gatso yelled for the brakes, and the co-driver was just a little slow in reacting. Result: one mangled TR-3, one badly bent co-driver, and one Gatsonides with his hopes for a Gold Cup dashed against the side of an Alpine bluff.

      Triumph Meets Peugeot

      Meanwhile, back in Car 418, Halmi was doing rather nicely. He and Smith had made it up the Stelvio Pass Hill climb. (This is an easy little affair consisting of a 20 degree grade for 14 kilometers. To keep up driver interest, 72 hairpin curves must be negotiated before reaching the summit ! )

      By the last morning, Halmi and Smith were in high spirits. All they had to do was finish in order to be third in class. This can be a rather exhilarating thought for two Americans challenging the cream of European rally drivers on their home grounds.

      Somehow, in the excitement, they had miscalculated their gasoline supply. At the top of a mountain, the car stopped and they could see third place fading from sight. Halmi spotted a hotel nearby and, since it was 5 a.m. and he didn’t want to awaken anybody, he decided to borrow some gas. With the price running at one dollar a gallon, you can be sure there was none lying about. Every second was valuable. What to do? After a quick consultation, they decided to freewheel down the mountain.

      It was some ride. The brakes held the whole way and they made the next check point on time! Ten precious minutes were lost while they siphoned some gas from a sympathetic rally official’s car. Off they zoomed with three hours to go to the finish line.

      After 79 hours of driving, our two heroes were within reach of the silverware. And then it happened.

      As they were barrelling down a mountain pass, a lonely Peugeot escaped the scrutiny of the aforementioned gendarme and started crawling up the mountain. Peugeot met Triumph TR-3 head on. The ensuing crash meshed the two front ends into one solid jagged mass of metal. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured.

      The Peugeot driver got out and began to berate Halmi. You Englishmen are beasts, he screamed.

      I’m an American, Halmi shouted back.

      Americans are worse !, yelled the Peugeot owner.

      I’m really Hungarian, said Halmi.

      The rest of the dialog is unprintable, and since it concerns Peugeot more than Triumph, we shall

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