Topic

Triumph TR7

Billed as ‘the shape of things to come’ at the time, the angular wedge was driven by a more or less the same two litre engine that appeared in the much loved Leyland stalwart the Dolomite Sprint.

Is it cool?

To see all the Cool Wall cars click on this link

All the cars are now in the new Cool Wall section in the T-Bar

Not my cup of tea, but I still think its quite a cool car! At least they tried to come up with something a bit different...

Wedge shaped front ends were all the rage for a while and I loved them. It's surprising how quickly they dated though and when looking back it's hard to think why you liked them so much .... a bit like flares I suppose
The bumper on the TR7 does look awful, almost an afterthought

I loved the Esprit S1 as a kid - probably because of the James Bond underwater one! Been a fan of Lotus ever since.

I think it is very hard for a car that was not really loved when it came out and to look so dated and disjointed to ever be cool.

The TR7 cool it's just a car that was around in the past, a curiosity, not something you look at and say YES I would love one of them

My uncle had a TR7 FHC when I was 10 and to me back then it was seriously cool. He worked in oil expoloration and so worked 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off and would lend Dad the TR& while he was away. We used to get a family of four in it.
The two best memories I have are my uncle driving it in the winter wearing a bobble hat and the bobble used to stick out of the sunroof and that if you kept flicking the lights up and down for long enough they got completely out of sync so you could have one up, one down.
He sold it when he bought a hot air balloon and needed something to tow the trailer and it was replaced by an Austin Ambassador!

Had a TR7 FHC for years. What a great car, easy to drive easy to work on. Definately should be on the cool wall. I wish i still had it.

Here's my early FHC (#764) It was a good car, literally rust-free, and was my daily driver for 4 years until I bought my MGF.
For a Speke-built car quality was very good, and after a lot of TLC it turned out to be a reliable car. (It did still have some electrical gremlins-When the signals stopped you had to turn the second fuse up!)
I got to like the TR7 back in the late 70's when I worked for a small repair shop, and we did a lot of work on 7's fresh out of warranty.
They had few serious problems other than the rotten fan clutch, and the MGB window winder handles.
I found that the styling wasn't as dated as some posters say. Many people were astounded to find it was 35 years old.
(7's do look much more up to date in "modern" colours like mettalic silver)

Happy Days. I did my courting in my 1977 TR7 coupe. A white one with twin black stripes following the curve from the front wheel arch to just above the rear wheel arch. Ahh UKX660R where are you now... Probably long gone. Its not listed by DVLA as taxed or on SORN.

I actually wanted a TR7 Convertible when I bought the F but my wife said no as she remembered how unreliable and rusty it was when it was at 4 years old. I tried to tell her it was a Speke built one and the Solihull built cars were better , but she wasn't having any of it. Then the F had HGF Sods Law I suppose.

The Speke built cars are kind of odd. I have talked to several owners of pre-serial #1000 cars and none of them had any rust issues.
It could be that the QC men on the factory floor in those early days outnumbered the workers. I wouldn't be surprised with the union/management conflicts that were on the verge of boiling over.
Apparently later cars weren't as fortunate.

The TR7 I would really like to own is one of the 60-odd Sprintsthat were built with the twin-cam engine from the Dolly Sprint.
Another BL missed opportunity.