Hi
For me it was a case of seeing my first, red, fhc when I was still at primary school. I can clearly remember it coming past me and disappearing off down the street. As I recall I had recently got the Dinky model from the local newsagents as had a lot of my peers, so to see the real thing was genuinely exciting. We weren’t yet avid readers of the motoring press so didn’t know about launch schedules and so on.
I can only speak for myself, but the TR7 in 1976 was like something from another planet and I can best describe it this way. TV programmes and films in my opinion have a tendency to show particular time periods where many of the vehicles are shiny and new and pretty much from the same year as the plot. 1976 in Lanarkshire actually saw the roads still full of Morris Minors, early Cortinas, Austin 1100s, Morris Oxfords and so on. The TR7 really looked strikingly different, desirable, exotic and expensive. No one at school was cool enough even to have a relative that had one, never mind be run to school in one – that would have trumped anything!
That desirability and the perception of the car being exotic and unattainable stuck with me. Sitting in one in the Triumph showroom the interior and dashboard looked astonishingly modern, especially compared with then-new cars such as Vauxhall Vivas and Austin Maxis. Looking back now it was an integrated, impressive, ergonomic design with a tachometer, clock, cigar lighter, arm rests, heated rear window, no visible paint, and even twin control stalks which were by no means common at the time. I just thought that interiors couldn’t get any better. Add to this the pop-up headlamps, the low stance and, again, the sheer quantum leap from the likes of the Spitfire (in the mind of a ten-year-old) and you have the creation of an ongoing fascination with and desire for the model. I was always going to have one to the exclusion of anything else.
Fast-forward a few years and within two months of starting my first job I had a Poseidon Green fhc complete with sunroof and alloys and nothing else would have done. Did it live up to expectations? Absolutely. Was it unreliable to begin with and full of rot? Yes. Was I the subject of ridicule? Yes. Did I give a stuff? No.
20 years later I still have one.
When and why did the perception of my (same) peer group change from “that’s a desirable, exotic car†to “look at him, can’t afford a decent car� Don’t know.
Now they are “classics†and still attract the knowing looks and “witty†comments but a whole new generation sees them as cool and exotic again. Plus ca change.
1979 TR7 TCT DHC 16V
Formerly...
1980 TR7 FHC
1980 Factory TR8 DHC
1980 Factory TR8 DHC Automatic
1977 TR7 FHC Parts Car
1980 TR7 FHC Parts Car
