I think everyone agrees it was stupidity that killed the British auto
industry (after all, we love the cars, they should have sold well, right
? <g>), but agreement on which stupidity is a little harder.
IMO producing the 3B at the same time as the 4 was not necessarily bad,
just a desperate response to a desperate situation. And, the relative
lack of visual distinction between the 4/4A/250(5)/6 wasn't nearly as
big a problem as the lack of performance improvements, at least for cars
delivered to the US. Why is it everyone else used fuel injection as the
solution to their emission problems, while Triumph refused to do the
development ? I'm not too familiar with the Lucas injection, but surely
it was no more primitive than the Bosch injection used on VW Rabbit/Golf
in the early 70's ? VW actually switched _because_ they could not get
the carbureted version to pass US emission standards.
Plus, of course, all the other car makers noticed Triumph and MG's
earlier successes, and were coming out with competition. The Japanese,
German, and even US car makers were all making serious competition for
the low cost sports cars by the late 60's. To my mind, the TR6 was no
competition at all for the Datsun Z-cars, except for diehard ragtop
fanatics, and the 76hp (as delivered in California) TR7 was a joke !
Had the V8 been offered as an option when the TR7 was introduced,
history might have been different.
Randall
59 TR3A daily driver
"Philip E. Barnes" wrote:
>
> You won't get an argument from me. It is widely recognized that stupidity
> killed the British auto industry. Triumph played catch-up for years before
> it finally got them. Read any of the books and see what their product
> planning and market analysis was like. Why was the TR3B produced? What was
> the impetus for the design of the TR6 and why was it so much like the TR4A?
|