Page 1 of 1
James May on 70's Cars
Posted: 01 Dec 2007 09:48
by gordon kerr
<font color="green">Not sure if this is a good or bad thing but James May (of Top Gear fame) says in the Daily Telegraph:
<font color="red"><b>"Yes, I think the TR7 was a great looking car" </b></font id="red">
[:0]
Read the whole aritcle in the Telgraph Online here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2007/12/01/mrmay01.xml</font id="green">
<font color="green">Gordon
GRD 1980 Brooklands Green 2l FHC
OVC 1980 Platinum Silver 3.9l V8 FHC
Bedford, UK.
http://www.waringstowntr7s.co.uk/blogs/ ... gordonkerr</font id="green">
Posted: 01 Dec 2007 14:26
by jclay (RIP 2018)
My posted comments:
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Century Gothic, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Good day, Mr. May,
Thank you for publishing such an interesting and insightful article. I have to agree with you that the TR7 is a good looking car. I happen to own one and drive it everyday. Over my lifetime, I have owned and worked on many British cars, including the Nash Metropolitan, Austin Healy Sprite, MG Midget and “B†series and lastly, Triumphs.
The TR7 was a vast departure from the TR styling and from the British sports car traditions. It handles well, has more interior room, modern shocks, ground breaking plastics technology and a great heater/air conditioning system. While I do find the standard 2-liter engine adequate for my style of driving, the TRs fitted with Sprint or Rover V8 engines give outstanding performance.
Traditions are good things. Your country has been in existence much longer than the United States and with the great divergence in cultures that make up the residence of my country, very few major traditions exist. I would like to think that the day Harris Mann was designing the TR7, he wore an Hawaiian shirt and a pair of shorts to the office.
Regards,
jclay
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Posted: 01 Dec 2007 18:08
by John Clancy
Thanks very much for posting that Gordon. It's about time someone well known went on record as James May has done.
I certainly agree with him that the Princess too was a good looking car. In fact, Harris Mann's original Allegro design was pretty good too! Shame it was messed up by engineering.
<center><b>[url="http://www.triumphtr7.com/documents/sales/codenamebullet.asp"]Buy the story of the Triumph TR7/8 on DVD here[/url]</b></center>
Posted: 01 Dec 2007 19:25
by Wayne S
Hi Guys,
I presented the podcast shows for The MPH Show /Top Gear Live. A couple of months ago, I interviewed James May as part of the build up to the show and he was very complimentary about BL cars and Triumphs in particular. More biased towards the 6 but and interesting chat.
Click here and scroll down to play Episode 5:
http://www.mphshow.podcastdownloads.co.uk/
Also I interviewed Richard Hammond and a few other members of the behind the scenes team who mentioned they owned Spitfires in their collections.
Purple 2.0 Litre DHC Grinnal
Posted: 02 Dec 2007 11:36
by gaz
nice to see that someone from the top gear team likes them you wouldn't see Clarkson saying that does anyone remember the jousting comp between the the TR7 & the Scorpio......... in tne Heaven and Hell DVD
ONE DAY IT'LL BE BACK!!!
Posted: 03 Dec 2007 20:23
by mak
Clarkson also states in one his books that the TR7 V8 is pretty stunning..
Good on James May!
Posted: 04 Dec 2007 10:21
by trphil
The TR8 and TR7 Convertible feature in JCs Top 100 Cars book.
Posted: 04 Dec 2007 16:11
by John Clancy
But he does also say they would appear in his 'worst' 100 book as well if he ever does one.
Actually he's probably not too far wrong here but he is a little too biased simply because it's easy to make fun of the TR7 as it was so radical for its time. And Clarkson has earned his popularity by taking the mickey. The TR7 did have faults but a properly sorted example, like so many of ours are, prove to be outstanding cars that offer value for money no other classic sports car can.
<center><b>[url="http://www.triumphtr7.com/documents/sales/codenamebullet.asp"]Buy the story of the Triumph TR7/8 on DVD here[/url]</b></center>