in Sept 09 Automobiles Magazine
"You can be forgiven if the names don't mean anything to you. One is a pair
of initials currently being slapped on Chinese-built Rover sedans; the other
is a word usually used to reference old, oil-leaking motorcycles. Neither
has appeared on a new car in this country in more than twenty-five years,
but once, both were household names.
In the decades following WWII, British Marques MG and Triumph essentially
created the stateside market for the low-cost, high-fun roadster. By
packaging pedestrian sedan components into rakish, droptop bodies, they
introduced thousands of people to the joys of cornering and all but invented
the wind-in-hair grin. And while the two companies battled each other in
grand style at places like LeMans and the N|rburgring, the real contest took
place in showrooms.
It came down to a difference in personality: Triumph were raucous, snarly
little things, all torque and attitude, while MGs were more refined, often
slower, but usually better built. The dichotomy regularly carried over into
ownership: According to lore, MG people wore string-back driving gloves and
saw Triumph jocks as hairy-eared brutes; Triumph people ate raw meat and
thought driving gloves were for dandy fops who drank light beer through a
straw. Charmingly, each side was to be secretly in love with each other.
MG and Triumph faded out of the U.S. market in the early 80's, victims of
corporate avarice and terminal mismanagement. Triumph later went belly-up;
MG, although still technically alive, has spent the past two decades on
badge-engineered life support. All told, it was an ignominious end to one
of the automotive industries more likable duels."
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