TriumphTR5

Notable Triumph TR5s

The TR5s and TR250s with stories of their own: the Wasp prototypes, the first and last cars off the line, a press car and a police car, Michelotti's Ginevra, the Sebring TR250K, and the cars privateers rallied and raced.

A red wedge-nosed roadster with four headlamps behind a clear cover and wire wheels, on wood chips beside a pond at a concours.
One of the two one-offs, Michelotti's TR5 Ginevra, at a Swiss concours on 17 June 2023.Arnaud 25, CC BY-SA 4.0

Few TR5s were built, and almost all of them led private lives. A few did not. Some were built before the TR5 existed, to prove it; some mark the beginning and the end of the line; one was lent to a magazine and another taken by a police force; two were one-offs; and a handful went rallying and racing. The cars with records of their own are listed below, and two have pages.⁠1​2​3

The prototypes, 1965–67

The project was called Wasp, and its cars carried X numbers. Michael Richards lists seven: X747, built in February 1965; X748, a year later; X753, X754 and X755, registered in 1967; and X760 and X761, built that year. The cards below give the registrations of those that had them.

Two have later stories. Revington TR records that X747 was registered to Lucas for injection development, and that Lucas kept it until 1972. X760 became something else: Giovanni Michelotti's Ginevra was built on it, as tr5passion.com records. What became of the others is not known from any source read.⁠1​4​3

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The first, the last, and two that made the news

Production began with a TR250, CD1, on 11 July 1967, and the first production TR5 PI, CP2, followed on 29 August. The last of each, CP3101 and CD8594L, was built on 19 September 1968.

Motor Sport borrowed a Valencia blue TR5 PI from Standard-Triumph for the test it printed in August 1968; road tests tells its story. And in July 1968 the importer's newsletter in America pictured a TR5 that the Coventry police had taken for motorway (expressway) patrol, and the TR250 page quotes its caption. No source read gives either car's number.⁠2​5​3​6​7​8

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The one-offs

Two one-offs made their debuts in the same month, March 1968. The TR5 Ginevra was Giovanni Michelotti's open two-seater for the Geneva show, built on X760 in about 15 days, which survives in private hands. The TR250K, a prototype from Kas Kastner's competition department with an aluminium body that Peter Brock drew, retired from the Sebring 12 Hours with a broken wheel and also survives. Neither went into production.⁠3​9​10​11

A low blue racing car with a long tail and number 47 in a white roundel, at speed on a circuit.
The other one-off, the TR250K, its No. 47 on the door, on a circuit on 8 September 2013.Lodahln, CC BY-SA 2.0

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Rally and race cars

Private owners raced and rallied the TR5. Roger Barbara, the Triumph agent at Aire-sur-la-Lys, told Frédéric Reydellet of tr5passion.com that he took his TR5 to Portugal for the rally of 1968 and again in 1969, and to the 84-hour Marathon de la Route at the Nürburgring in 1968, which it did not finish. Jean-Jacques Thuner, who had driven works Triumphs, told him of the Swiss importer's TR5, which he drove in the Monte Carlo and Geneva rallies and in hill climbs. In Sicily in May 1969 a car entered by A. C. Smith, No. 112, which racingsportscars lists as a TR5, ran in the Targa Florio and retired.

In America the racing cars were TR250s: Group 44's in the East, which Bob Tullius drove, and the competition department's in the West, which Jim Dittemore drove. Their seasons are on racing.

In 1990 Motor Sport tried a racing TR5 at Cadwell Park, built in 1967 and made into a racer from 1984, which had already won two championships that season.⁠3​12​13​14​15

A dark green sports car with a hardtop and a rally number on its door, parked under bamboo among other rally cars.
Rallying a TR5 today: a hardtopped TR5 PI entered in the XX Clásica de Tenerife, photographed on 19 November 2021, and not one of the cars on this page.Mike Peel, CC BY-SA 4.0

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Notable cars

  • Built 1967

    CD1

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1968

    CD8594L

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1967

    CP2

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1968

    CP3101

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1965

    X747

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1966

    X748

    Whereabouts unknown

  • X753

    Whereabouts unknown

  • X754

    Whereabouts unknown

  • X755

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1967

    X761

    Whereabouts unknown

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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
  • Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
  • Uncheckedencyclopaedias and enthusiast sites: cited beside a good source, named in the sentence, or marked Unchecked
  1. Michael Richards, Triumph TR4, 5, 6, Haynes, 1990, full-text passages on the Wasp prototypes. Reference
  2. Drew Holliday, "Triumph TR250 Production Information" (8 pp. PDF), Vintage Triumph Register, p. 1. 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, TR5 Ginevra page (_r60); Racing history page (_r62); TR5 Ginevra page (_r60), X760; Identification page (_r61), CP1; TR5 Ginevra page (_r60); Racing history page (_r62). Reference
  4. Revington TR, "TR250/5 Technical Specification Change Points", para. 1, X747. Reference
  5. 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. Reference
  6. Iconic Auctioneers, Lot 182: the Triumph TR5 prototype CP1 ("LHP 288F"), Race Retro Classic & Competition Car Sale, 24–25 Feb 2023, lot 182, lot 182, CP1. Unchecked
  7. Doug Nye ("D. C. N."), "Road Test Report on a Sports Car: The Fuel-Injection Triumph TR5 PI", Motor Sport, Aug 1968, p. 26, p. 26, the test car. Primary
  8. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, July 1968, Jul 1968 (vol. 14 no. 7), p. 3, the Coventry police. Primary
  9. "Johnny Oversteer", "Almost Famous – Triumph TR5 Ginevra", Moss Motoring, 25 Mar 2015. Reference
  10. Leon Mandel, "TR-250K: Salvation of an Empire", Car and Driver, Apr 1968 (vol. 13 no. 10), pp. 2–4. Primary
  11. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1968, Apr 1968 (vol. 14 no. 4), pp. 1–2. Primary
  12. racingsportscars.com, "Triumph TR5 – All Results", Targa Florio 1969. Database
  13. Motor Sport, "The 53rd Targa Florio", Jun 1969, p. 36, p. 36. Primary
  14. racingsportscars.com, "Triumph TR250 – All Results", 1968 entries. Database
  15. Motor Sport, "Veteran to Classic – Triumph TR", Dec 1990, p. 54, p. 54. Reference

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