I have been asked by Alec Pringle to relay the following:-
Bad news, I’m afraid, in so much as Bert Smeets and the TR8 Turbo Le Mans will NOT now be able to make the Mallory Park meeting on May 26, Bank Holiday Monday.
A great disappointment, but Bert is suffering from an unforeseen family crisis - which absolutely precludes his coming over even just for the Monday, let alone for any initial testing beforehand. You’ll appreciate my respecting his family privacy, but I guess we all experience the unexpected occasionally. Sh*t happens.
As anyone who knows Bert will understand, the last thing he wants to do is to let down his fellow TR enthusiasts who were looking forward to seeing the car. So much so, that he was prepared to let me take the car to Mallory anyway, in his absence. Fair enough, I have tested it before.
However, neither I nor the rest of the team think that’s right – Bert has spent 3 years and a small fortune restoring the Le Mans car to its former glory. It’s only fair that he should be the first one to show it off . . .
That will probably now be some months away yet, unfortunately, whilst other matters take priority for Bert.
As some of you will know, the rebuilt engine was successfully bench-tested back in October/November. The engine side of things looks fine now, thanks to John Eales.
Subsequent progress has been slowed-down by a series of niggling snags; and a week’s delay with one component throws out other schedules - and all too easily becomes a month’s set-back.
For all practical purposes there is hardly any detailed original documentation remaining, which doesn’t help of course. Almost every part of the car is either a one-off, or re-engineered from another application. The differences between, for example, a Group 4 TR7V8 rally car and the Group 5 TR8 Le Mans car are endless. The G5 TR8 owed a lot to Group 6, Can Am and F5000 technology - exotic, expensive, and not easy to renovate.
The TR8LM is now up and running, adequately so for demonstration purposes. Thanks to Trevor Godwin and his colleagues at Coventry Automotive.
There is still a fair amount of detail work to be completed by Trevor and his guys before serious testing can be undertaken. Then it will be down to a modest amount of development work, principally to finally sort out some of the handling deficiencies that were less than completely resolved back in 1978-82, and to resolve the notorious wheel issues. Historical problems with the transmission and brakes have, I reckon, now been pretty much sorted. None of this is new technology. ADA and Janspeed were only too well aware of the problems, and their solutions, back then - only the financial wherewithal was lacking at the time.
It’s only the Old Farts, the Greybeards, who’ll recall John Brindley, Ian Harrower, John Sheldon and Bill Wykeham wrestling the old pretender around La Sarthe, Silverstone and Brands Hatch back in 1980-82. Believe me, in those days brave giants walked the earth.
Revisions to the TR8 have been strictly ‘in period’, the eventual fulfilment of an uncompleted development programme, almost 3 decades on. Such is life. The TR8 Turbo Le Mans was an awesome ambition - with the benefit of hindsight, a mission impossible.
But it’s survived, however improbably, it’s still with us, and it’s still the only TR that’s ever topped the double-ton. Its competitors from way back then have enjoyed three decades of ‘legitimate evolution’, whilst the TR8 has languished in a barn. It’s the last survivor, the only British production-derived car that dared show its face at La Sarthe in 1980.
The TR8 Turbo Le Mans won’t ever win a race, it’ll probably never even win its class. But it will remind us of what might have been. The last, and fastest, TR of them all.
Keep the faith. It’s ready to rock’n’roll. And it will.
Meanwhile there’s a Triumph race at Mallory that’s worth seeing regardless – thanks to Jigsaw. See you there !
www.triumphtr.co.uk
TR8 FHC
TR7 Sprint
