I had the chance to have dinner with Tom Purvis, president of BMW a couple of
nights ago.
As some may know, he hails from Rover and is quite the British car
enthusiast. I mentioned that I race a TR3 and he admitted a special fondness
for that
car. He quickly reminded me that BMW owns the rights to the Triumph name and
hinted that there had been some discussion about bringing the Triumph name
back
from the dead. I suggested a retro TR3 looking car based on the BMW Z-4 with
the 2.0 liter four cylinder BMW uses in Europe, since the original TR3 had a
2.0
liter four cylinder.
Without putting to many words in his mouth he seemed genuinely interested in
this idea and wanted to talk about it further. I told him a year from now,
once the enormity of the new retro Mustangbs success was obvious, would be a
good
time to discuss this whole idea some more.
What do you guys think? Would you buy it? What should it cost? Should it be
called the TR1 since the name was never really used or the TR9? Tom mentioned
the enormity of setting up the MINI dealer network and building a new brand
image. What if BMW started a sort of BMC or British Leyland division again and
lumped Triumph in with MINI?
Let's get some dialog going on this and I will get back with Tom Purvis. As
it will be easier to get him to our message board, than to get him to join FOT
and a message board is easier to keep organized than a million emails, I have
started a thread on our message board:
http://www.grmotorsports.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=71447#71447
Please go here and post your ideas. if you participate in any other Triumph
boards, groups sites etc, please also see if you can get them to post their
ideas on this thread. I for one would love a new TR3 looking car with BMW
performance and build quality. This guy seemed genuinely interested. Heck who
knows,
maybe we can change the automotive world with our little club of Triumph
wackos! Thanks.
Tim Suddard/Classic Motorsports magazine
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