[Fot] Fwd: Now that's something I've never seen before. Sabrina motor carbs for a TR

[Kas Kastner]

*Never be beaten by equipment.*

This is all very interesting. In 1966 after the great success at Sebring
with the team trophy (which I still have) there was serious talk about me
setting up a deal at each of the import points of the cars to start a
modified line of TR-4A cars just like the Sebring racers. The engines and
suspension of the cars would be exactly as the racers were and all street
legal.

 But, as the planning was being worked on the huge specter of the emission
regulations and the D.O.T. problem coming up so soon put a big damper on
the project in the fear that we'd have cars left over that would not meet
the new regulations and thus the plan, it ended up on the cutting room
floor. Warranty issues were also a sticking point that had not been
resolved but not discounted either. The success of the Shelby Mustang and
Cobra car programs had been the spark to start this talk. It was a petty
exciting time even though it never happened.

*Never be beaten by equipment.*

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 11:39 AM, <rdavis4 at cfl.rr.com> wrote:

> I had passed the Ebay info yesterday to Charles Runyan at the Roadster
> Factory.He has two of the cars and I think he may have missing one set.
> Maybe he bought them.
>
> Bob
>
> ---- robertten1 at aol.com wrote:
> > Curious,
> >
> >
> > Did someone on this list purchase them or did some Triumph old timer
> guru grab them?
> >
> >
> > Bob T
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Michael Porter <mdporter at dfn.com>
> > To: billdentin <billdentin at aol.com>; fot <fot at autox.team.net>
> > Sent: Wed, Mar 16, 2016 7:39 pm
> > Subject: Re: [Fot] Now that's something I've never seen before. Sabrina
> motor carbs for a TR
> >
> >
> >
> > On 3/16/2016 1:10 PM,      billdentin at aol.com wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Agreed!  If nothing else, it would be nice to have just for          its
> rare, historical significance.  But down through the years          I have
> always wondered why the SABRINA engine never made it          into their
> production cars.  They sure seemed to do their job          on the race
> track, but there must have been issues why they          never went into
> their normal production cars.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I wonder if Kas or Mike Cook has any take on that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     I imagine they do, but, my first        guess would be the overall
> cost.  At precisely the time that the        American market was expecting
> lots of changes year to year,        Triumph was making just a few cosmetic
> changes to control        expenses and to address manufacturing problems.
> It made no        sense to hang onto an engine the basic design of which
> dated        back to the `30s--which Triumph did==except for reasons
> having        to do with money.
> >
> >         Tooling costs, especially for low-volume producers, are
> horribly        expensive.  With talented people and enough time, it's
> possible        to make a few units in-house without production tooling and
> come        up with something that works reasonably well (this might be
> why        the engines had, IIRC, some persistent oil leaks during
> racing),        but translating that design to production is quite another
>       matter.  New castings means new forms, and any changes in the
> design means changes to production equipment, too--most
> manufacturers at the time had specially-made gang drills to        drill
> out the bosses for head bolts in the block and the head,        etc. (by
> and large, no CNC machining centers then, especially        for small
> producers), and all those had to be redone or adjusted        to new
> tasks.  And all this would have come at the precise time        that
> Triumph was just absorbing new tooling costs for the        Spitfire and
> the T
>  R4. And in that period, early `60s, market        conditions were already
> changing--the trend toward muscle cars        in the U.S. certainly had an
> impact on the sports car        market--and emission controls were coming
> and the company was        already inching toward receivership (wasn't the
> first part of        S-T turned over to British Leyland in 1968?).
> >
> >         In a way, it was a perfect storm of adverse conditions.  I'm
>     sure that S-T sensed a need to make some radical changes, but
> they only had the money to make do.
> >
> >
> >         Cheers.
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> > Michael Porter
> > Roswell, NM
> >
> >
> > Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking
> distance....
> >
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