1976 Triumph TR6

Specifications

Engine: Inline 6-cylinder

Displacement: 2,498c

Horsepower: 106 hp @ 4,900RPM

Torque: 142 ft-lb @ 3,000RPM

Transmission: 4-speed manual

A Little History

The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company in the 19th and 20th centuries, founded in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg formed S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them under his own trade name in London. The company’s name became “Triumph” the following year.

All TR6s were powered by Triumph’s 2.5-liter, cast-iron overhead valve straight-six engine, an evolution of the Standard Motor Company’s inline-4 Standard Eight, with the addition of two cylinders and a larger displacement. The TR6 featured a four-speed manual transmission, with an optional overdrive unit to give drivers close gearing for aggressive driving with an electrically switched overdrive which could operate on second, third, and fourth gears on early models, and third and fourth on later models because of constant gearbox failures in second at high revs. The TR6 construction was fundamentally old-fashioned – the body was bolted onto a frame, instead of the two being integrated as unibody structure.

This example’s rare factory steel hardtop was optional and required two people to deploy. The dashboard is a walnut veneer, with other factory options including a rear anti-roll bar and a limited-slip differential.