The 1970s gave us disco, blockbuster summer movies, and a whole lot of wedge-shaped cars. Today’s Nice Price or No Dice Triumph is one of those pointy-prowed cars but will its price drive a wedge between it and a new owner?
As often as I can, I like to bring you cars that have some unique factor that helps make them stand out. In the case of yesterday’s 2009 Porsche Cayenne GTS, that unique factor was a ZF six-speed manual transmission. According to the seller, that made it one of only 128 cars so equipped, and hence earned the car the headline sobriquet of “unicorn” in the ad.
Apparently also unique was that Porsche’s $55,000 price tag — a price that the seller said was “non-negotiable.” That was seemingly just too much for… well, almost all of you, as the Cayenne fell in a massive 93 percent No Dice loss. I guess that meant that no negotiation was actually needed.
There have been numerous histories covering the fall of the British automotive industry, all undeniably regretful. Labor unrest, poor quality, and mismanagement all conspired to doom the British Empire’s major domestic carmakers to the scrap heap. It’s a shame because Britain was once one of the most innovative and forward-looking car-producing nations on the planet.
Looking at today’s 1980 Triumph TR7, one might not exactly get that impression. The fact is, by the time the TR7 rolled around, Triumph was already on the ropes and a series of bad decisions, along with some just atrocious reliability issues, further doomed the venerable carmaker.
That’s too bad since, despite its notable faults, in open-top form, the TR7 is still a pretty interesting car. Let’s start with those faults and then get into why someone might still want to buy this one despite all the naysaying.
The TR7 was designed in the early 1970s as a clean-sheet replacement for the earlier TRs, a series that could trace its basic bones all the way back to 1953. The car replaced the TR6 in Triumph’s two-model lineup and substituted that car’s 2.5-liter OHV straight-six engine and trailing arm independent rear suspension for a SOHC four-cylinder of just two liters displacement and a solid rear axle.
Perhaps worse, the TR7 first came only in hardtop form, as the company feared the U.S. government would soon ban convertibles for safety reasons, and the American market was where Triumph was making most of its money.
Of course, most of its contemporaries, cars like the Porsche 924 and Datsun 260Z, were also coupe-only, so that didn’t seem all that odd at the time. Sadly, the Triumph didn’t have the build quality of either of those competitors and that, along with factory strikes that impacted production and an increasingly unfavorable exchange rate between the British Pound and the American Dollar caused Triumph to lose ground in the U.S., its most important market.
The company didn’t stand still, however. The addition of a five-speed gearbox (and an automatic) plus a convertible version kept the TR7 funky fresh and actually improved sales for a while.
This TR7 has both the five-speed gearbox and the top that goes up and down, making it one of the more desirable editions. It also looks to be in amazingly good shape, something that’s rare for TR7 models since these are not generally cars that people keep up. The ad notes this to have been a California car and as we all know, everything is wonderful here in California (ha, ha). What that does mean is that there’s no rust on the car and none of its rubber is too sun-baked.
Oh, and there’s a lot of rubber here. One of the TR7’s more distinctive features is the overly-large bumpers that are present at each end of the car. They met the U.S. standards for five mile-per-hour impacts but didn’t look all that good doing it and they haven’t aged well since.
Fortunately, the rest of the car is pretty cool looking and the convertible body style rectifies most of the fixed-head coupe’s styling foibles. Still, there is the unnecessarily severe swage line sweeping down the door toward the front wheel arch, but that’s a bit of kitsch that seems less egregious these days.
The interior is in great shape too and features wonderful plaid upholstery on the seats and door cards. Everything seems to be in decent condition and the car even looks to have the funny little rubber caps on the door corners to keep them from snagging your pants.
Under the hood, there’s a tidy engine bay with a chrome-plated cam cover and a pair of can-style air cleaners in place of the factory box that typically feeds the twin Stromberg carbs. Those don’t seem to have any facility for the PCV breather so don’t expect the car to be welcome back in California in its present state.
There are 99,825 miles on the car, according to the ad, which is a large number for a TR7. Luckily, there seems to have been a lot of maintenance updates along the way as detailed in the ad. The A/C — yes, this TR7 has A/C — has also been updated to R134. That all should make this a modestly fun car to drive.
The title is clean and the reason for selling is an addition to the family relegating the two-seat sports car to also-ran status. To make this TR7 a new addition to your family, you’d need to come up with $5,500, and we’ll need to now discuss if that’s a deal or not.
As you’re ruminating that question, keep in mind that any of the TR7’s predecessors would command, at minimum, twice that if in this kind of shape. Will the last of the line follow them up the value ladder? Only time will tell. Until then, you’ll have to tell us your thoughts. Is this Triumph worth that $5,500 asking? Or, does that price less of a Triumph and more of a defeat?
You decide!
Tampa, Florida, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Daniel Hoyfee for the hookup!
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