To read earlier parts in this series, click the following links: Part 1 Part 2 In which Sam Bennett continues to describe life and times at the MG factory in the early days. By Marcham Rhoade Pressed steel used to make the chassis for the MGs, and the bodies came from Carbodies of Coventry. As…
I have insider information about the first days of some of these cars and it isn’t all pretty. Don’t get me wrong, I love British cars. I go to all the car shows I can within a 100-mile radius of Columbus, Ohio. To pay for college in the early 1970s, I worked as a lot…
The Triumph monument and its history By Bill Piggott April 16, 2000 will go down in the history of the Standard Triumph Motor Co. as a very special day, the day that may prove to be the final act in the history of the old company on its principal site in Coventry. On that Sunday,…
In these days of mass produced automobiles, using more and more robots, and fewer and fewer human beings, have you ever thought what it was like in the early days of sports car production? What sort of people put your dinosaur of a British car together? Well, come with us back to the 1930s (when…
By Paul Richardson My father, Ken Richardson, who was competition manager of Standard Triumph, organized an attempt on World Endurance Records with a TR3 at the Monza circuit in Italy—and I was to witness it. Ken decided to combine the record attempt with our family holiday on the Italian coast near Pisa. When the news…
By Paul Richardson The international rallies in Europe in the ’50s were run over some of the most testing routes imaginable, especially the Criterium Des Alpes, commonly known as The Alpine. As its name implies, the rally was essentially contested over the high Alpine passes of central Europe and was generally regarded as the toughest…
By Paul Richardson After my father Ken’s Competition Department at Standard Triumph was closed in the early ’60s (due to the Leyland takeover), he was invited to join the TVR sports car company in Blackpool as Competition Manager. The family moved north from Coventry, and I also joined TVR. I worked in the Experimental Department,…
Jaguar’s XK series wakes the post-war world America’s love affair with the automobile is so well documented, it has become more than just a cliché—it has moved comfortably into the banal land of things that are taken for granted. Consumers are spoiled brats of industry to an extent, wanting to see a new car model…
By Paul Richardson The first Triumph TR2 was born in January 1953, designed and engineered to thrive in the flourishing American sports car market. The production run totaled 8,636 cars between summer 1953 and fall 1955. Many of these TR2s were shipped to the U.S., where they promptly made Triumph an exciting presence on the…
The rare alloy-bodied cat that sired the American sports car By Tom Morr; photography by Scott Dahlquist One of the world’s most stunning sports cars has roots that burrow back to an English piano repair shop. Four decades before he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, William Lyons toiled in his dad’s piano shop. This experience…
