I haven't been able to find anything of the whereabouts or history of any of these cars. It may be that these cars were LHD cars and thus were sold abroad like
most of the first batch. Vissually, since the shells are standard, there is little to indicate the Sprint. Some of them had a side-stripe simelar to those often fitted to the TR7, but with the word 'SPRINT'
replacing the TR7 logo on the rear quarters.
The lettering style is very strange, not like anything used on the other 7's or 8's. These are still available in some colours (not black) from Moss. I have also seen
one picture, in David Hardcastles' book on the Rover V8 engine, of a car owned by the power train department, which had a V8 engine fitted. The picture shows a small 'sprint' decal on the front panel below the TR7 logo.
This is identical to the Dolly Sprints boot logo, but smaller. I have one of these somewhere), and they may be available from Moss as well.
There is some confusion over the TR7 rally cars. An article in Motor
Sport in June of 1976, stated that the rally cars had been homologated with the 16 valve engine. According to the RAC the TR7 Sprint with the 16 valve engine was not homologated until February of 1978 and then only
for group 4, though it seem clear that the rally cars were using the 16 valve engine well before this date. The TR7 having been homologated in 1975, under homologation number 3071.
I have since obtained a
copy of the TR7 homologation documents, and whilst it is true that the 16 valve head was homologated in 1978, it was first homologated for group 4 in 1975 at the same time that the production cars were homologated for
group 3.Although the SJW TR7V8 rally cars began life as TR7 Sprints, the rally cars were scratch built using bodies taken off the line and prepared by Safety Devices. So only the registration numbers from
the sprints were used. Although full production of the factory sprints did not start, the sprint configuration has remained very attractive. So attractive that quite a number of 8 valve (sometimes called 2
valve) TR7's have been converted over the years, my own 1980 TR7 DHC (now registered as A TR7 16V) included.
Click here to read about the Sprint conversion . . . . .
Click here to take a look at my car.
The article was originally written by Graham Fountain for the TR Driver magazine in 1989.
Pictures taken without permission from the book
'Triumph TR7 & TR8, owner's & buyer's guide' by James L. Taylor. Published by YesterYear Books (60 Woodville Road, London NW11 9TN). |