In October 1975 British Leyland Cars (BL) announced their official return to the motorsport.
Three cars were prepared for the 1976 RAC Rally Championship. Two of these cars would be the Triumph TR7 FHC (coupe). Among the crew was Tony Pond, who became the most successfull one.

The first test run with a rally TR7 was on 4th March 1976. The car was painted in BL's rally colors patriotic red/white/blue livery. The cars made their debut in the International Welsh Rally (May 1976).

When BL launced their programme it became known as 'the works' TR7 rally programme. The cars were equipped with 16V Sprint engines and overdrive gearboxes. In the first season it was extremely hard to get the engines and gearboxes reliable. The engine produced about 220bhp, which is not bad for a 2-litre.
However the car was underpowered and overweighted compared to the 'enemy' e.g. Ford Escorts and Opels. BL decided to hire 'good' drivers like Tony Pond and Brian 'Captain' Culcheth, both famous in previous rallies.

The first two 'works' rally cars were registered as 'KDU 497N & KDU 498N'. The cars looked impressive but their first performance was a disaster. The cars left the Cardiff start of the Welsh Rally but right from Stage 1, Culcheth's car overheated and by Stage 3 suffered from a blown cylinder head gasket (sounds familiar?). Tony Pond did it slightly better but was forced to stop at Stage 9 with no oil pressure.

It took ages to get the cars reliable. The engine problems were unexpected. Head gaskets modifications were carried out. At the isle of Mann the team used a 5spd gearbox and suddenly the cars started to perform very well. The first successes came towards the end of the first season. Tony Pond finished 3rd and Culcheth 5th.

The TR7 16V Sprint was fast in a straight line but was difficult to handle. On tarmac the car seemed to perform better than on gravel. Rally mods were carried out; a rear trailing arm linkage (instead of the original suspension) and a high ratio steering rack.

Two new 'works' TR7s were prepared (OOE 937R and OOE 938R) but both weren't very successfull.