Triumph TR6: Canley’s success story

By Graeme Hurst

| 17 Jul 2025

Classic & Sports Car – Triumph TR6: Canley’s success story

There’s a certain irony about the impact of evolution in car design.

The very decisions that were taken decades ago to improve a model have often resulted in a drop in today’s values.

When Jaguar modified the floorpan of its seminal E-type just a year into production, the alterations unquestionably made the car more comfortable to drive, yet it’s the cramped ‘flat-floor’ cars that command a premium today.

Likewise over at Lotus, the Hethel engineers’ attempts to update the Elan – first with bigger brakes and plusher trim, then fixed-frame electric windows and a better hood – no doubt improved the model, but it’s the pure S1 that enthusiasts most covet.

The Triumph TR6’s Lucas mechanical fuel-injection set-up was previewed on end-of-the-line TR5s

Those paradoxes are largely down to the old fundamentals of the free market economy, supply and demand, but they aren’t limited to prestige marques.

Adding a fuel-injected straight-six to the Triumph TR5 gave the long-running and popular TR range a welcome boost in performance, but it was really only a stopgap until the styling could be brought up to date with the mechanically identical TR6 in 1969.

With its sharper, more fashionable lines complementing the TR5’s grunt, the TR6 was an instant success that secured Triumph’s future: 13,912 UK-spec TR6s and a staggering 77,938 Federal-spec, carburetted cars rolled out of Triumph’s Canley plant over six years.

Decades after the model’s demise, however, that rampant production total has merely served to fuel interest in the 2947 TR5s that left the line in just over a year following the model’s August 1967 launch.

Which means that prices for the TR5’s successor have remained comparatively low.

The Triumph TR6’s smaller steering wheel is a boon in the tight cockpit

What’s more, with stonking performance and simple, handsome lines, the Triumph epitomises all that’s great about rugged, thrilling classic British sports cars.

To find out if that reputation holds true, we have a thoroughly sorted Triumph TR6 for a blast across the West Midlands.

The region was once the great bastion of the UK car industry and this car’s birthplace, and it’s equally steeped in landmarks of British history.

More importantly, it boasts some fantastic roads on which to stretch the TR6’s legs.

We kick off in the scenic Warwickshire town of Stratford-upon-Avon, once home to the UK’s most famous poet and playwright, William Shakespeare, who was born here in 1564.

The Triumph TR6 passes Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon

The town is also within spitting distance of the Cotswolds, found just 10 miles down the A3400.

However, the proliferation of tourist buses in the height of summer makes those narrow, stone-walled roads a bind, so we head west towards Alcester.

Once free from traffic, the A422’s gentle, sweeping bends invite you to explore the performance of the torquey 2.5-litre Lucas-injected straight-six, and revel in the thrum of the exhaust as it echoes off hedgerows.

Give it another inch of throttle and the surge in acceleration – plus the sunlight reflecting off the TR6’s bonnet – gives a first taste of the recipe for a classic British sports car: simple, predictable road manners and a delicious engine note.

It’s a combination Triumph served up so well over the years, ever since launching its line of TR-badged, Standard-engined models with the TR2 in 1953.

More than 60,000 examples of the classic ‘sidescreen’ TRs were made, but those raw early roadsters were not without their flaws, and criss-crossing the back-roads to avoid a plodding farm tractor reveals one of the TR6’s greatest virtues: independent rear suspension.

‘The combination of 150bhp and chiselled looks catapulted the TR into the 1970s’

The switch to semi-trailing arms at the back originally came four years earlier with the TR4A, which paved the way for the sporting line’s future development.

When Triumph commissioned Italian styling house Michelotti to reclothe the TR3A’s chassis at the start of the 1960s, it retained the cart-sprung live axle at the rear and the venerable 2138cc four-cylinder engine.

Michelotti’s efforts were a big hit, cementing the marriage of Continental design and British engineering for years to come, but the TR4’s underpinnings limited the car’s success.

Triumph’s first move was to improve the handling by grafting on the 2000 saloon’s independent rear end, but its extra weight hampered performance.

Cue the installation of the saloon’s six-cylinder motor, stroked to increase capacity to 2.5 litres, for the TR5. With power up by a whopping 50%, the TR5 was an instant success.

The Triumph TR6 sits nicely on dished steel wheels

Motor described the new unit as ‘magnificent’ and ‘the answer to an enthusiast’s prayer’, but it was clear that added grunt alone wouldn’t be enough to ensure longevity.

Automotive design was changing, with more rakish, sharp-edged looks becoming the norm, and Michelotti’s curves were looking dated.

Again design salvation came from abroad, but this time Germany: Michelotti was too busy to take on a restyle, so Triumph looked to Karmann for a rework of the TR5’s looks.

At first glance the Triumph TR6’s crisp lines appear entirely fresh. But picture a TR4 in your mind and you start to appreciate just what a styling masterclass Karmann produced.

The flatter, broader front end freshened up Michelotti’s efforts, while the sharp, black-painted Kamm tail brought the rear right up to date.

The TR6’s central tub was unchanged from the TR5

The centre section was left unchanged to save cash – even the kink at the top of the door is made part and parcel of the new look.

Yet if the average Triumph TR6 owner had never seen a TR4 or 5, they would be none the wiser about their car’s origins.

Adding even more of a 1970s feel was Triumph’s range of colours: Saffron, Tahiti Blue and searing Magenta were just some of the cool shades to be chosen from British Leyland’s enhanced marketing palette.

This car’s bright Mimosa Yellow certainly has presence against the rolling fields of still-green barley as we spear our way through the villages of Inkberrow and Upton Snodsbury.

Five miles further along the A422, we cross over the M5 and head into Worcester. This Tudor town on the River Severn is home to another famous English product: Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.

Punch ‘Midland Road’ into your sat-nav and you can swing past the site of the original factory, which has been producing the bitter-sweet condiment since it was formulated by John Lea and William Perrins in 1837.

The Triumph TR6 takes a break near Edward Elgar’s Worcestershire birthplace

Head a couple of miles farther west along the B4204 and you can stop at the village where Edward Elgar – composer of the patriotic Pomp and Circumstance March #1 – was born in 1857.

It’s a fitting stop for a car that so aptly symbolises the genre.

With the Healey axed a year before the TR6’s launch and the MGC a flop, Triumph was the last marque to fly the flag for the appealing formula of affordable, six-cylinder sports cars that evolved in the 1950s and ’60s from a handful of West Midlands factories and which became coveted around the globe.

It was the combination of 150bhp grunt (reduced to a mere 105bhp in the smog-strangled USA) and chiselled looks that catapulted this TR from its 1950s origins into the 1970s.

Also underpinning its success was keen pricing: in January 1970, its showroom tag of £1367 was extraordinarily good value, when Jaguar’s built-to-a-price E-type was £2294 and Mercedes-Benz’s 280SL came in at a whopping £4466.

No other six-cylinder roadster could come close for the money.

The Triumph TR6 crosses the River Teme at Ham Bridge in Worcestershire

Roaring on through Worcestershire, we get a taste of why it hit the mark.

The torque of that sonorous straight-six is thrilling, as the rear end hunkers down and the nose lifts.

The engine’s impressive tractability comes courtesy of the Lucas fuel injection, although that aspect of the car also came in for criticism in the press when it was new for rough running – caused, in fact, by the ‘hot’ camshaft that lay behind the magic 150bhp figure.

On an empty country lane, however, it is super-smooth when the rev-counter needle starts to climb and the twin exhausts come on song, as you flick the overdrive in and out for bends.

It’s not all impressive, mind: having that cast-iron straight-six planted over the front axle translates into a tendency to understeer, but that quickly evaporates when you pile on the power as you exit a corner.

The cockpit is narrow, too, and the slightest pothole results in some alarming scuttle shake – both attributes that can be explained by the separate chassis, which dictated the car’s width and was never likely to match the high torsional rigidity of a monocoque over bumpy terrain.

The Triumph TR6 was among the last of the old guard of great British sports cars

The seats don’t recline and the cockpit is an ergonomic mish-mash, with an ignition barrel so buried that you have to put your hand between the steering-wheel spokes to turn the key.

But it’s that sort of idiosyncrasy that feeds the Triumph TR6’s character – a ‘live with it or do without it’ aspect that seems to come with the territory.

With a view of open roads ahead across the long bonnet, those shortcomings are quickly forgotten as we surge on towards another local landmark.

West of Martley along the B4204, you’ll find Shelsley Walsh, the world’s oldest working motorsport venue.

On any summer weekend there’s likely to be no shortage of British fare being thrashed up the famous 1000-yard hillclimb, which has changed very little for more than 100 years.

In a way, the TR6 is the automotive equivalent of Shelsley: a car that delivered sufficient thrills to soldier on largely unaltered while many rival products came and went.

The Triumph’s ‘six’ can get breathless at high revs, but torque and long gearing – 2500rpm at 70mph in overdrive top – make the TR6 a fine cruiser

The addition of dished steel wheels (instead of pressed hubcaps) aside, the only significant change came in mid-1972, when the engine was detuned to 125bhp.

The revision was attributed to a change from SAE to DIN measurement and a switch to a milder cam profile in the interests of smoother idling, but it was also rumoured that British Leyland bosses didn’t want the TR6 to outgun the new V8-engined Triumph Stag.

A drop in power was hardly the way forward, but with its outdated construction and the prospect of safety legislation putting an end to convertibles in the US, the TR6 was never going to be a candidate for further evolution.

Besides, BL had its corporate eye on the Triumph TR7, the wedge-shaped monocoque coupé that so spectacularly failed to pick up where the TR6 left off.

Such commiserations are academic today, with the brand now long dead, so we turn off for a final stretch of B-road fun up to the top of Clee Hill and the superb view over the Wyre Forest.

Karmann’s successful rework turned the Triumph TR5 into the TR6

From here it’s less than 10 miles along the A4117 to Ludlow, foodie capital of Shropshire, or head north-west on The Long Mynd.

The route south through the Brecons is tempting, too.

Whichever you take, you’re guaranteed roads as rewarding as the Triumph TR6 is to drive.

Images: James Mann

Thanks to: Tony Merrigold

This was first in our September 2010 magazine; all information was correct at the date of original publication

Factfile

Triumph TR6

Sold/number built 1969-’76/13,912 (plus 77,938 carburetted US-spec cars)
Construction steel body, steel chassis
Engine all-iron, ohv 2498cc ‘six’, Lucas fuel injection
Max power 150bhp @ 5700rpm
Max torque 149lb ft @ 3000rpm
Transmission four-speed manual, optional overdrive, RWD
Suspension independent, at front by double wishbones, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar rear semi-trailing arms, lever-arm dampers; coil springs f/r
Steering rack and pinion
Brakes discs front, drums rear, with servo
Length 12ft 11in (3940mm)
Width 5ft 1in (1550mm)
Height 4ft 2in (1270mm)
Wheelbase 7ft 4in (2240mm)
Weight 2473lb (1122kg)
Mpg 23
0-60mph 8.2 secs
Top speed 119mph
Price new £1367 (1970)