Triumph TR8

The V8 was meant to be there from the start. The TR Drivers Club and Mike Cook, Jaguar Rover Triumph's man for the American press in those years and later the car's historian, agree that the wedge-shaped sports car code-named Bullet was planned with two engines, a four and Rover's aluminium V8. The four came first, in the TR7 of 1975. Cook explains why the V8 waited: the Stag's engine was not to stay in production, Rover's was in short supply, and no five-speed gearbox (transmission) of the time was strong enough for it.

In 1977 a first run of V8 coupés was built at Speke, in Liverpool, for an American launch the following year. BL postponed the launch indefinitely, and most of the cars crossed the Atlantic without a single badge, as company cars for its own staff in the United States and Canada. BL's works rally team ran its V8 cars as TR7 V8s, on the Group 4 recognition the FIA gave the TR8 on 1 April 1978. The TR8 raced before it went on sale, too: in July 1979 Bob Tullius's Group 44 won its class with one at its first race, the Watkins Glen 6 Hours, finishing 7th overall.

The TR8 reached American showrooms in the spring of 1980 (in May, by Michael Lamm's account), as a convertible. In 49 states it ran on two carburettors and in California on Lucas/Bosch fuel injection, which every North American car of the 1981 model year had. The magazines were delighted: Car and Driver thought it had reinvented the sports car, and Road Test chose it as the best new sports car of the year, as the road tests tell. On the track, TR8s won the GTO class of IMSA's series five times in 1980, Tullius in four of them.

The showrooms were harder: after the Iranian revolution petrol (gas) was dear, the American economy weak and the pound high against the dollar. By the end of 1980 Jaguar Rover Triumph was offering a $1,000 rebate on the TR8. A right-hand-drive TR8 for Britain got as far as a pilot run before it was dropped, early in 1981 by the product planner's account. In May 1981 BL announced that the TR7 and TR8 would end; most of the British cars and the factory's development fleet were sold at BCA's auctions at Measham in August and September, and the last TR8s were built at Solihull in October.

With better timing, the TR8 might have saved a company. Instead, it faded away before the world could discover how good it really was.

How many were built depends on who is counting. BL's own calendar-year table leaves out the pre-production cars, and identification sets every count beside its source.⁠source 1​source 2​source 3​source 4​source 5​source 6​source 7​source 8​source 9​source 10​source 11​source 12​source 13​source 14

Contents

The TR8's place in the line was taken before it arrived. The TR7 had been on sale in America since April 1975, and the last TR6 left Canley in July 1976, long before any TR8 reached a showroom. The TR8 was a TR7 with Rover's V8, not a new design: the history tells how the two were planned together, and why the V8 came so late. It took its engine, five-speed gearbox and axle from Rover's SD1 3500 saloon (sedan).

Nothing followed it. Two longer cars on its underpinnings, the Lynx and the Broadside, never reached production, and the TR7 and TR8 of 1981 were the last of the TRs. The Triumph name lasted until 1984, on the Acclaim, a car based on a Honda.

To a large extent, the TR8 fulfills the promise of the TR7 and is more in keeping with what the car was originally supposed to be.

The history's rivals section sets it beside the four cars the American press compared it with, from the Mazda RX-7 to the Porsche 924, on price and pace. The changes made for each market, from California's injection to the British cars' carburettors, are on the versions page.⁠source 15​source 2​source 16​source 6​source 17​source 11​source 18​source 7​source 5​source 19

Contents

Not every V8 wedge is a TR8. "TR7 V8" was the name BL's works rally cars ran under and, triumphtr8.com says, the one some of the first coupés wore, and it is the usual name for the many TR7s that owners and specialists have since given V8 engines, some of them with TR8 badges added. Identification explains the numbers, TR7 V8 conversions the converted cars, and the buyers guide what to look at before buying one.

Whatever the badges say, only the chassis number settles it, with the engine number and a Heritage Certificate from the British Motor Museum's archive behind it.⁠source 12​source 2​source 3​source 20​source 21​source 22

Contents

Built

1977–1981

Versions

3Coupe, Convertible and UK RHD

Price new

$11,150suggested retail price for the coupe, May 1980⁠source 5

Contents

1. 

   Coupe

   1977–1980 · 3528 cc

   about 150 built or about 400 or 410 or 160

2. 

   Convertible

   1979–1981

3. 

   UK RHD

   1980–1981 · 3528 cc

   22 built

Pictures, top to bottom: Vauxford, CC BY-SA 4.0; kitmasterbloke, CC BY 4.0; kitmasterbloke, CC BY 2.0.

Contents

• A

  Built 1977

  ACN 00001

  Whereabouts unknown

• EKV 397T

  The BSM TR8

  Whereabouts unknown

• GT

  Group 44 TR8, No. 44

  Whereabouts unknown

• GT

  Group 44 TR8, No. 4

  Whereabouts unknown

• JVC 824V

  X919

  Whereabouts unknown

• KHP 573V

  Built 1980

  EXP 921

  Whereabouts unknown

• KHP 574V

  Built 1980

  EXP 923

  Whereabouts unknown

• KHP 575V

  Built 1980

  X924

  Whereabouts unknown

• MHP 404V

  Built 1980

  The first Home Market TR8

  Whereabouts unknown

• NWK 988W

  Built 1980

  BL Motorsport's development TR8

  Whereabouts unknown

• PVC 568W

  Built 1980

  EXP 925

  Whereabouts unknown

• SHP 658R

  Built 1977

  ACN 00012

  Survives

• KS

  Ken Slagle's TR8

  Whereabouts unknown

• TLB 254M

  X840

  Whereabouts unknown

• TT

  Built 1981

  The last TR8 built

  Whereabouts unknown

• TT

  Built 1981

  The last TR8 by chassis number

  Survives

• UXC 582M

  X843

  Whereabouts unknown

• WAC 272S

  Built 1977

  WAC 272S

  Whereabouts unknown

• WAC 275S

  Built 1977

  WAC 275S

  Whereabouts unknown

• X

  X858

  Whereabouts unknown

• YDU 617S

  The Autocar test coupé

  Whereabouts unknown

Contents

• BA

  Bill Adam

  Canadian racing driver. He drove Group 44's TR8 No. 44 with Bob Tullius in 1980 and 1981, and a second TR8, No. 4, alone in five IMSA races of 1980 (racingsportscars prints no entrant for it then; Group 44 entered No. 4 at Sebring in 1981). With Tullius he won the GTO class at Sebring, Mosport and Road America in 1980, and in No. 4 he won it at the Daytona Finale that November. He later shared Group 44's Jaguar XJR-5 with Tullius.

• A

  Armstrong

  Shared Peter Bulkowski's TR8 in the 1982 Mosport 6 Hours. racingsportscars prints only the surname.

• RB

  Richard Barwell

  Was entered in a TR8, No. 48, for the 1982 Trans-Am round at Kent, Washington, but did not start.

• PB

  Pat Bedard

  American racing driver. He shared Group 44's second TR8, No. 4, with John Kelly in the 1981 Sebring 12 Hours, finishing 20th.

• LB

  Luc Behar

  Canadian. He was entered in a TR8, No. 42, for the 1981 Trans-Am round at Trois-Rivières, but did not start.

• B

  Berhar

  Shared Peter Bulkowski's TR8 in the 1981 Mosport 6 Hours. racingsportscars prints only this surname.

• B

  Bossom

  Drove KJJ Enterprises' TR8 in the 1985 Sebring 12 Hours; it retired without completing a lap. racingsportscars prints only the surname.

• PB

  Peter Bulkowski

  Canadian racing driver. He raced a TR8 in the Mosport 6 Hours every year from 1980 to 1983, and in the Trans-Am at Mosport in 1981 and at Trois-Rivières in 1982; his best finish was 15th, 4th in the GTO class, at Mosport in 1982.

• ML

  public relations manager

  Michael L. Cook

  Jaguar Rover Triumph's public relations manager in the United States through the TR8's launches, and later its historian: the author of "1981 Triumph TR8: Fast and Last" (Special Interest Autos, 1996) and Triumph Cars in America (2001). James TenCate calls him "Mike Cook (VTR)", of the Vintage Triumph Register.

• F

  Fesar

  Shared Peter Bulkowski's TR8 in the 1983 Mosport 6 Hours. racingsportscars prints only the surname.

• BF

  founder

  Brian Fuerstenau

  Mechanic and co-founder of Group 44 Inc.; 1968 SCCA F Production national champion in a car racingsportscars lists as a Spitfire.

• RH

  engineering liaison

  Richard Hurdwell

  BL Motorsport engineer: chassis development engineer for the works TR7 V8s from July 1979. His memo of December 1980 on a TR8 development car records that the rally TR8 being built for 1981 had been scrapped.

• JK

  John Kelly

  American racing driver. In 1968 he drove TR4As in SCCA D Production, entered by Group 44 according to racingsportscars: 2nd in D Production at Cumberland on 12 May, when TR4As finished 1st to 4th, and winner of the D Production race at the American Road Race of Champions in Group 44's TR4A. He was the 1970 SCCA F Production national champion in a Spitfire, and drove Group 44's TR8s in the 1980 Daytona 24 Hours and the 1981 Sebring 12 Hours.

• SK

  chief engineer, technical director

  Spen King

  British engineer (1925–2010). He joined Rover in 1945 and became its chief engineer in 1959; the Range Rover (1970) is his best-known car, and he also engineered the Rover SD1. After the 1968 merger he succeeded Harry Webster as Triumph's technical director and led the TR7's engineering. AROnline credits him with developing the 16-valve head; Ate Up With Motor credits it to Lewis Dawtrey.

• BK

  Bruce Kulczyk

  Canadian. He entered the TR8 that he and Peter Bulkowski drove in the 1980 Mosport 6 Hours.

• L

  Lechnowski

  Shared Peter Bulkowski's TR8 in the 1983 Mosport 6 Hours. racingsportscars prints only the surname.

• HM

  stylist

  Harris Mann

  British car stylist: British Leyland's chief designer in the 1970s and early 1980s, best known for the Allegro, the Princess and the TR7. Trained at engineering school and as an apprentice at the coach and bus builder Duple, he worked with Roy Haynes on the Marina and styled the wedge-shaped Austin Zanda show car (1969). His Longbridge team's wedge became the TR7: he said he went to the United States before drawing it, which made the design more extreme, and that it was meant to have a targa roof, which engineering could not make work. The convertible's prototype was Michelotti's, not his. He died in 2023, aged 85.

• JM

  John McComb

  Racing driver for Group 44. In 1975, as British Leyland's Triumph team driver, he won the Northeast Division and then the SCCA D Production national championship in Group 44's TR6, at Road Atlanta on 2 November, leading from flag to flag; that September he finished 3rd overall in the Brainerd Trans-Am in the same car. He shared Group 44's TR8 with Bob Tullius and John Kelly in the 1980 Daytona 24 Hours (racingsportscars).

• GM

  stylist

  Giovanni Michelotti

  Turin car stylist. He began his career in 1937 as an apprentice at Stabilimenti Farina; according to carrozzieri-italiani he opened his own design studio in Turin in 1949, the first in Italy devoted only to car design; the TSOA Newsletter of 1966 also dates the studio to 1949. His first contact with Standard-Triumph came in 1957: Harry Webster's obituary in the Telegraph says Webster "discovered" him, while Graham Robson says he was found through Raymond Flower and hired on Webster's recommendation with Alick Dick's approval. His first Triumph design was the one-off TR3 "Dream Car" on a TR3 chassis, shown at Geneva in 1957 according to later accounts; Krause says it followed a chance meeting with Alick Dick at a motor show. He went on to design the Italia (1959–62) on TR3A and TR3B running gear. On his own initiative he drew a one-off body for a BMW 507 chassis, shown at the Turin show in 1959, which BMW has owned since 2005. He styled the Herald (1959), whose separate chassis made the Spitfire possible; answering Webster's idea of a "Herald sports car", he built a single prototype in 1960, code-named "Bomb", and later restyled the car as the Mk IV of 1970. For the TR he styled the prototypes Zest (1958) and Zoom (1959) and the TR4 of 1961, which joined Zest's nose to Zoom's tail and kept Zoom's hardtop with its lift-out panel; the TR4A, TR5 and TR250 kept that body with new detail, and its centre section on the TR6 (1969), whose new front and rear Karmann designed because he was busy. According to his son Edgardo, his work for Triumph ended in the late 1970s with a restyle of the TR7 from coupé to spider; he died in January 1980. No source read links him to the Le Mans or Macau competition bodies.

• LM

  Lee Mueller

  SCCA national champion in a Spitfire (F Production, 1969) and in a TR7 (D Production, 1979). In 1974–75 he drove Huffaker Engineering's V12 E-Type in SCCA B Production, winning on its debut at Seattle in August 1974.

• GO

  project manager

  Garry Owen

  Managed the right-hand-drive TR8 project of 1980–81 at Canley and Solihull; he later wrote about it in Practical Classics (September 1997).

• KS

  Ken Slagle

  American racing driver. He won the SCCA C Production national championship at the 1981 Runoffs at Road Atlanta in "a highly modified TR8", in Mike Cook's words.

• BT

  founder

  Bob Tullius

  American racing driver. He bought a TR3 in 1960 and raced from 1961. In TR4s he won the SCCA national E Production championship in 1962, Triumph's first national class title by the importer's account, and D Production in 1963 and 1964; Triumph gave him one of Kas Kastner's Sebring TR4s. With Brian Fuerstenau and Dick Gilmartin he founded Group 44 Inc. in 1965; it won 14 SCCA national titles and three Trans-Am championships before closing in 1990. In 1968 he raced Group 44's TR250 in SCCA C Production. By the importer's count in September he had six wins in the Northeast Division, enough for at least a tie for its title, and three outside it. He was 3rd in C Production at the ARRC, and he co-drove the TR250K at Sebring. From 1969 to 1974 he raced Group 44's TR-6 in SCCA C Production, 2nd at the 1972 American Road Race of Champions, and showed it on British Leyland's stand at the 1972 London Motor Show; Severson writes that the last TR6 built went to him. In 1974–75 he raced Group 44's V12 E-Type in SCCA B Production: 2nd at the 1974 Runoffs by 0.8 s, and national champion in 1975. He had won the SCCA Trans-Am drivers' championship in 1977 and 1978 with a Jaguar XJ-S. From 1979 to 1981 Group 44, Jaguar Rover Triumph's official US racing team, raced the TR8 in IMSA and the Trans-Am. It won its class on the car's debut, the Watkins Glen 6 Hours of July 1979; Tullius won his class four times in 1979, in IMSA GTO and the Trans-Am, as Car and Driver and Lamm count them, and Group 44's No. 44 won the IMSA GTO class four times in 1980. British Sports Car Hall of Fame, first class (2017).

Contents

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

1. Rex Holford, "A Brief History of the TR8", TR Drivers Club, Bullet, the two engines envisaged. Reference
2. Michael L. Cook, "1981 Triumph TR8: Fast and Last", Special Interest Autos, no. 156, Nov–Dec 1996, pp. 10–17, pp. 11–13, why the V8 waited, the Speke coupés as company cars; p. 15, the pound and the economy; p. 16, the rebate; p. 17, "With better timing"; the TR7 in American showrooms, April 1975; p. 17, the last of the TRs; p. 13, the rally cars labelled "TR7 V-8". Reference
3. Paul Towle and Rex Holford (update) and Mark Elbers (update), "TR7 & TR8 Identification & Production Data Explained", TR Drivers Club, 1987, updated (© 2016), Speke section "ACN"; Solihull section; TR8 prefixes and number ranges; Speke section "ACN". Reference
4. Chris Turner (credited by the club), "The Works Triumph TR7 V8 Rally Cars" and the car pages (group), TR Drivers Club, FIA recognition, 1 April 1978. Reference
5. Michael Lamm, "1st Drive in the Triumph TR8", British Car, Feb–Mar 1999, pp. 46–48, p. 48, dealerships in May 1980; p. 48, the rivals' prices; p. 48. Reference
6. Road & Track, "Triumph TR8: Good news from the other side" (road test), Jun 1980, pp. 76–79, p. 77, carburettors for 49 states, injection for California; data panel, the 3.08:1 axle; pp. 76–77, the rivals; June 1980, data panel. Primary
7. Don Sherman, "Triumph TR8" (road test), Car and Driver, Aug 1980, pp. 36–40, p. 36, the reinvention of the sports car; p. 38, the rivals. Primary
8. Walt Woron, "1980 Triumph TR8 Convertible: RT's Selection for 'Best New Sports Car of 1980'", Road Test (US), Jul 1980, pp. 16, 83–86, p. 16, the award. Primary
9. James TenCate, "Production Numbers – A Detective Story", TR Driver (TR Drivers Club), 2012 no. 2, para. 3, every 1981 car outside the UK injected; para 3. Reference
10. racingsportscars.com, "All Results of Triumph TR8" (1979–1999), Watkins Glen 6 Hours, 7 July 1979; the 1980 IMSA GTO class winners. Database
11. Aaron Severson, "Way of the Wedge: The Triumph TR7 and TR8", Ate Up With Motor, 5 Feb 2012, pp. 1–5, p. 4, oil prices, rebates, May 1981; p. 4, the Broadside; the Acclaim, June 1984. Reference
12. triumphtr8.com, Variant pages (group): "FHC TR8 (ACN) 1977", "FHC TR8 (TCN) 1978–1979", "TR8 (TCV) 1979 DHC", "TR8 (TP) 1980", "DHC TR8 (SAT) 1981/82", DHC TR8 (SAT) 1981/82, the last cars in October 1981; FHC TR8 (ACN) 1977: badged TR7V8 at first; TCN page. Reference
13. triumphtr8.com, "Right hand drive TR8 Home Market UK" and "TR8 RHD Production Story", modified 23 May 2026, RHD project production planning, as the product planner gave it; "22 - the Correct Figure". Reference
14. Canley Classics, "TR7 & TR8 Experimental Records", BCA Measham section. Primary
15. Chris Cowin, "History: Exporting British cars to the USA – Part Two", AROnline, 31 May 2025, updated 21 Oct 2025, TR6 passage: the end at Canley, July 1976. Reference
16. John Miles, "Miles Behind the Wheel: America's TR8", Autocar, 1979 (May, according to triumphtr8.com), p. 2, the SD1's engine, gearbox and axle. Primary
17. Malcolm Paris (compiler), "Triumph TR7 / TR7 V8 and TR8 Buyers Guide", TR Register, the TR8 as the V8-engined TR7. Reference
18. Hilton Holloway, "Triumph revival on again", Autocar, 29 Feb 2012, the Acclaim, 1984. Reference
19. Fred M. H. Gregory, "TR8 V-8: A mighty Triumph" (road test), with the sidebar "A String of Triumphs", Motor Trend, Jun 1980, sidebar "A String of Triumphs" (F.M.H.G.). Primary
20. triumphtr8.com, "TR8's Genuine Factory cars: History & Authentication" and "Is it a genuine TR8?", 6 Jun 2026, "Is it a genuine TR8?": conversions with TR8 badges. Reference
21. triumphtr8.com, Pages (group): "FHC V8's 'TR8 Pre Production'", "TR8s with Creative Histories" and its linked case page, "Triumph TR8 RHD vs LHD: Factory Conversion Myths", "Buying a TR8", "TR8 Test, Development. EXP cars", "TR8s with Creative Histories". Reference
22. British Motor Museum (BMIHT), "Heritage Certificates", service description. Primary
23. Jaguar Rover Triumph Inc. (Leonia, N.J.), Triumph TR8 (sales brochure), USA, printed 4/80, 1980, 4/80 brochure, Engine. Primary
24. triumphtr8.com, "Production Figures for the TR8", 5 Jan 2026, production table. Reference

Contents