If we're considering "What Might Be's", why not A Spitfire Mk IX, or a
Herald 1800? Hey- TRs weren't everything...
Scott
64 Herald 1200 ragtop
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Macartney" <jonmac@ndirect.co.uk>
To: "Triumph List" <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2001 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Is Triumph coming back?
>
> Patrick Bowen wrote:
>
> Maybe I am a bit into anylizing corporate psychology, but people do
> things for a reason.
> While not holding his breath for a new rollout, is awefully curious of
> why!
>
> As others have commented, it costs little to register a trademark.
> Reliable sources have indicated to me outside a work environment that
> BMW were undertaking a great deal of research and asking more than
> just a few pertinent questions some months back about Triumph and the
> north American market. Okay, that's probably par for the normal
> research process (?) in registering a name that has lapsed for more
> than just a few years. Many overlook the fact that in the 1970's, the
> Triumph saloons sold in Europe, mainly Dolomite Sprint and 2.5/2500S
> saloons were a lower cost alternative to the Munich roundel. The
> Sprint and 2002ti certainly were neck and neck in European saloon car
> racing.
> Friendly discussions I have had over the last two years with senior
> BMW people on a broad theme "of what might have been 20 years ago"
> suggest the Riley and Triumph names were more than just of casual
> importance to them. One actually said, "if Jaguar Rover Triumph had
> not been so ruled by Austin Morris in the 1970's and had got the build
> quality sorted earlier, many of us in Munich think you might have
> bought us - and not the other way about as it later turned out."
> This is all idle speculation on what may or may not happen, but when
> you (happily?) divest yourself of a series of brand names, of which MG
> is one, and cling passionately to Riley and Triumph in the face of all
> odds, there is a reason. There's a factory at Spartanburg, another in
> Oxford that currently builds the new Mini (which BMW once claimed
> didn't really interest them all that much - yet they kept it) a new
> engines plant being built near Birmingham, a new parts warehouse - and
> Rolls Royce in a new factory near the south coast. That's a lot of
> money being invested - and quite a lot of space, isn't it? Possibly
> enough space to one day see a TR9, Messerfire or perhaps a Riley
> Adelphi, Imp, Lynx ... ?
> They might even do something completely different in Germany. Only
> death and the rent man are life's certainties, everything else is a
> variable.
>
> Jonmac
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