TriumphTR5

Triumph TR5 Commission Numbers

Real TR5 or converted TR250? The commission number answers it: CP for a TR5 PI, CD for a TR250, with letters after the number for left-hand drive and overdrive. How to read the numbers, where to find them on the car, and what a Heritage Certificate can and cannot tell you.

About the pictureThe TR5 PI's boot badges, standing in for a commission plate.

Close-up of a dark green boot with chrome TRIUMPH, OVERDRIVE and TR5 PI badges beside a tail lamp and reversing lamp.
Stand-in TRIUMPH, OVERDRIVE and TR5 PI on the boot (trunk) lid of a TR5 PI at the Silverstone Classic on 26 July 2014: the badges, standing in for a commission plate.Draco2008, CC BY 2.0

For every TR5, Canley built almost three TR250s. Nearly all of them went to North America, and the TR Register warns that many TRs have since come back, so that a car offered as a TR5 today may have been built as a TR250 and given injection, right-hand drive and new badges. The commission number, stamped on a plate when the car was built, is what tells them apart.⁠1​2​3

Reading a commission number

CP opens a TR5 PI's number, CD a TR250's. After the serial number, L marks left-hand drive and O overdrive, so CP…LO is a left-hand-drive TR5 with overdrive, and a number with neither letter is a right-hand-drive car without it. Leather seats were meant to be marked too, with an H: the VTR says that several original leather cars carry no such mark, and tr5passion.com puts the letter before the trim code, H for leather and C for cloth, with none for Ambla. The plates of Canley-built cars also carry the paint and trim codes.

The TR5s assembled from kits in Belgium, at Malines (Mechelen) according to tr5passion.com, have numbers of their own: 1CP … LP, the 1 before the prefix and P after the L.⁠2​4​3

CD8594L

  1. CDThe prefix: a TR250
  2. 8594The serial number
  3. LThe suffix: left-hand drive
An example: CD8594L, the last TR250, built at Canley on 19 September 1968.

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The numbers year by year

TR5 PITR250
FirstCP1, a prototype; CP2, the first production car, 29 August 1967CD1, 11 July 1967
First of 1968CP586, 1 January 1968CD2358, 1 January 1968, by the VTR's list (its text gives CD2685L)
LastCP3101, 19 September 1968CD8594L, 19 September 1968

The numbers ran further than the cars. CP2 to CP3101 is 3,100 numbers, and CD1 to CD8594 is 8,594, more in each case than the cars the production readings below count. tr5passion.com admits that "We do not know where the gaps are in the numerical sequence", and the VTR offers an explanation:

The difference in actual production and commission numbers is attributed to rebadging and numbers being assigned to cars that were never built.

Drew Holliday, "Triumph TR250 Production Information", Vintage Triumph Register

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What was the last TR5's number?

Fact check

CP3101

the VTR, Rimmer's catalogue and tr5passion.com

CP3096

the German TR Register's guide

Our reading. CP3101, the last car built on 19 September 1968, which three sources give. Moss Motors' table prints the last number as "C93096", a misprint that may stand for CP3096; it is not a third reading.⁠2​4​3​7​8

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Where to look on the car

Engines and gearboxes (transmissions) can be changed; the commission plate stays with the body and frame, as Moss Motors puts it:

The commission number is the one which should live with your car forever.

Moss Motors, "Triumph TR250 & TR6 Vehicle Identification"

Its place is described two ways: tr5passion.com puts it on the left-hand side of the bulkhead, and Moss Motors on the left-hand front wheel arch, for British cars of 1967 to 1974 and American cars of the 1968 and 1969 model years. No source read reconciles the two. On the Belgian cars, tr5passion.com says, the plate seems to have been riveted to the left of the battery, without the colour codes.

NumberWhereWhat it reads
EngineThe left-hand side of the blockCP…E on a TR5; CC…E on a TR250, from CC1E
BodyA plate on the right-hand side of the bulkheadThe commission number reversed, its letters last
GearboxThe left-hand side of the casingA CD series, shared with the saloons (sedans)
Rear axleThe bottom of the differential casingCP… on a TR5, by tr5passion.com
ChassisEngraved at the front, near the mountingstr5passion.com is not sure that every TR5's was numbered

The gearbox numbers are a trap. The TR's gearbox was shared with the Triumph 2000 and 2500 saloons and numbered in a CD series of its own, so a CD on the gearbox does not make a car a TR250. Only the commission plate's CD does.⁠3​8​1

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Real TR5 or converted TR250?

tr5passion.com puts the risk bluntly:

ATTENTION: The TR5 is a rare car and thus is much sought after. Some unscrupulous individuals transform TR250s into TR5 P1s!

tr5passion.com, "Identification"

Motor Sport warned of the same in 1996. A conversion means injection, right-hand drive, since every car for the United States was built with left-hand drive, as the TR Register points out, and the stripe and badges removed or changed. What gives it away is the numbers: a CD prefix, an L on a car that now steers from the right, an engine numbered CC…E. Traces of a left-hand-drive past help too, such as the brake-failure lamp and hazard switch, which left-hand-drive TR5s also had. So do traces of the American specification: the side lamps and the striped hoses described on the TR250 page.

tr5passion.com's checks come in three stages, and the TR Register adds one of its own:

  1. The plate

    The prefix, CP or CD, and its suffixes, against the car in front of you.

  2. The details

    The TR5's own badges and fittings against a TR4's, as tr5passion.com sets them out.

  3. The certificate

    A British Motor Museum Heritage Certificate, for a car built at Canley.

  4. The papers

    The number on the plate against the registration document, and then the model's registrar at the TR Register.

A Heritage Certificate records how a Canley-built car left the factory, which tr5passion.com sums up as "the origins of your TR5 (colour and original options, agreement of numbers etc.)". It cannot help with a Belgian-assembled car: tr5passion.com advises that the British Motor Museum holds no record of them, so there is no point in asking for one.⁠3​9​10​1​2​11​12​6

Close-up of a dark car's nose after rain: a small stacked TR 5 badge above a chrome grille and a headlamp.
The TR5's mark on the nose: the stacked TR 5 badge, its chrome worn, above the grille, photographed on 2 May 2010.pyntofmyld, CC BY 2.0
The nose of a black sports car on a show stand, a silver stripe across the bonnet above a TR 250 badge and the grille.
The TR250's: the stripe across the bonnet (hood) and the TR 250 badge, on a left-hand-drive car at the Classic Motor Show, NEC Birmingham, on 10 November 2017.andreboeni, CC BY 2.0
Close-up of a dark blue boot with chrome TRIUMPH, OVERDRIVE and TR250 badges beside a tail lamp.
The same TR250's boot lid, with its TR250 and OVERDRIVE badges.andreboeni, CC BY 2.0
A dark teal open sports car with a white stripe across the nose, its boot open with a luggage rack, on grass at a show.
A TR250 converted to right-hand drive that still wears its stripe and TR 250 badge, at the Trentham Gardens Classic Car Show, Staffordshire, on 21 June 2015; its alloy wheels are later.SG2012, CC BY 2.0

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Production

Production: how far the sources agree

2947, 1,161 home market + 1,786 export
Good sources agree.
1,161 + 1,786, "TR5 Home" + "TR5 Export (not USA)"
Good sources agree.
1,161 / 1,786 / 2,947, UK / export / total
Good sources agree.
2945, TR5 (1967-68), as printed; the sidebar names no source for its figures
One good source.

  1. 29471,161 home market + 1,786 export

    TR Register, "Triumph TR5 / TR250" (facts sheet, under "Buyers Guide")⁠12; Drew Holliday, "Triumph TR250 Production Information" (8 pp. PDF), Vintage Triumph Register⁠2; Frédéric Reydellet (racing history), tr5passion.com (group): "En bref / Summary", "Identification", "Lucas injection", "Options", "Technical spec", "Colours", "TR5 Ginevra", "Racing history", TR5 Passion⁠3

  2. 1,161 + 1,786"TR5 Home" + "TR5 Export (not USA)"

    TR Drivers Club, "The TR5/250"⁠13

  3. 1,161 / 1,786 / 2,947UK / export / total

    Graham Robson (essay "15 Years of Evolution"), Triumph TR2 – TR3/3A, TR4/4A – TR5, TR250 1953–1968 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.1 (source code TR2512), Part 1⁠4

  4. 2945TR5 (1967-68), as printed; the sidebar names no source for its figures

    Fred M. H. Gregory, "TR8 V-8: A mighty Triumph" (road test), with the sidebar "A String of Triumphs", Motor Trend, Jun 1980⁠14

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Sources

Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  1. TR Register, "Buyer Beware: TR6" (2 pp. PDF leaflet), p. 2, re-imports; p. 2, the plate; p. 2, US cars, conversions and the registration document. Reference
  2. Drew Holliday, "Triumph TR250 Production Information" (8 pp. PDF), Vintage Triumph Register, p. 1; pp. 1, 5, prefixes, suffixes and the leather mark; p. 1, span list and text; pp. 2–4, US equipment. Reference
  3. Frédéric Reydellet (racing history), tr5passion.com (group): "En bref / Summary", "Identification", "Lucas injection", "Options", "Technical spec", "Colours", "TR5 Ginevra", "Racing history", TR5 Passion, Identification page (_r61); Identification page (_r61), suffixes, trim codes and Belgian cars; Identification page (_r61); Summary page (_r58), years; Identification page (_r61), the conversions, the three checks and the certificate; Summary page (_r58). Reference
  4. Graham Robson (essay "15 Years of Evolution"), Triumph TR2 – TR3/3A, TR4/4A – TR5, TR250 1953–1968 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.1 (source code TR2512), Part 1, p. 7; pp. 6–7; p. 6, production table (read by the TR4 agent). Reference
  5. Motor Sport, "New M.G.-C Sports Car", Mar 1968, p. 44, p. 44. Primary
  6. Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 2: TR5, TR250, and TR6", Ate Up With Motor, 7 Nov 2012, notes on sources, Sports Car World. Reference
  7. Bruno Dwinger, "Geschichte, Typenkunde und Kaufberatung: Standard-Triumph TR4, TR5/TR250 – 'die Michelotti Autos'", TR-Register Deutschland, 2009, 13 pp. (PDF), p. 4. Reference
  8. Moss Motors, "Triumph TR250 & TR6 Vehicle Identification", 1968 row; stamping positions. Reference
  9. Motor Sport, "A–Z of Classic Sporting Cars 1950–1975", Oct 1996, p. 80, p. 80, TR5. Reference
  10. Chris Harvey, TR for Triumph, Oxford Illustrated Press, 1983, ISBN 0-902280-94-5, full-text passage on the cylinder heads. Reference
  11. British Motor Museum (BMIHT), "Heritage Certificates". Primary
  12. TR Register, "Triumph TR5 / TR250" (facts sheet, under "Buyers Guide"), markets; facts sheet, production. Reference
  13. TR Drivers Club, "The TR5/250", TR5/250 page, production. Reference
  14. Fred M. H. Gregory, "TR8 V-8: A mighty Triumph" (road test), with the sidebar "A String of Triumphs", Motor Trend, Jun 1980, Jun 1980, sidebar "A String of Triumphs" (read by the TR8 agent). Primary

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