1980 Triumph TR8
Wedge-shaped and polarizing, the TR8 was the culmination of a project conceived with the American market as its primary audience.
Harris Mann’s curved-wedge body was designed around anticipated U.S. crash regulations that briefly threatened to outlaw open-top cars altogether; when those rules relaxed, a roadster version followed the fixed-head coupe into production in 1980 (after limited 1979 introductions).
The engine was not a British unit by origin: the all-aluminum 215 ci OHV V-8 had been developed by Buick in the early 1960s and later acquired by Rover.
Rated at 133 hp and 174 lb-ft of torque in carbureted federal form (California-market cars received Bosch L-Jetronic fuel injection and were rated at 148 hp), it gave the approximately 2,700-pound (1,225 kg) car a 0-to-60 time of about 8 seconds and a top speed of around 120 mph.
A five-speed manual gearbox was standard equipment, with a three-speed automatic available as an option.
Of the roughly 2,722 TR8s built before British Leyland closed Triumph at the end of 1981, the overwhelming majority were shipped to the United States. Fewer than 30 examples were officially sold in the U.K., making the TR8 effectively an American car in everything but its place of manufacture.
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