Barn Finds reader Chuck F sent in this great find from Gulfport, Mississippi. It’s listed as a 1964 Triumph TR4A in the ad, and while it is a TR4A, it has to be between 1965 and 1967. Unless the “IRS” emblem has fallen off the trunk, it may well be one of the unusual North American market only solid rear axle TR4A’s; yes, Triumph offered independent rear suspension as an option on these cars. The price is right at only $400, and you can read about the car in this craigslist advertisement. It has sat for 8 years (Katrina was 10 years ago, so I’m hoping it wasn’t under water) and doesn’t run at the moment. There’s also no title, although there are ways that can be corrected legally. I’d be interested if it were local; my first Triumph was a ’66 TR4A and I wish I had kept it!
Waw!!! You could go a lot worse for $400, but if it was 8 years under a tarp in Mississippi, the floors will be the least of your worries. The frame may have some serious issues too. But there are more than $400 in parts there!
Blimey guvnor! That is cheap! Yes, ’64 would be too early for a 4A, also the bonnet badge is from a 4 – the 4A had the ‘World’ emblem. So, is it a 4 with a 4A dash and sidelights? Or a 4A with a 4 bonnet emblem. The chassis is different between the models and the 4A solid axle version is very desirable. I’m restoring one here in the UK at the moment. Very tempted to buy this one too! Conifer green was a popular colour for 4A’s.
Cheap indeed. There’s almost certainly many times that amount in usable spares – though maybe this doesn’t have to be bought just to part it out, it looks potentially restorable as a viable car?
The car is definitely a TR4A. The straight across bars in the grille, side lights on outside of fenders, “console” around the gear lever, badge on rear. As Roger points out above – that hood badge is not correct for TR4A.
The solid rear axle versions account for 25% of all TR4A production apparently. The US dealers were very wary that the new-fangled IRS might be considered too complex or not strong enough, and demanded that Triumph offer the car in solid rear axle form at least at the start. The rest-of-the-world cars all had IRS from the beginning. The solid axle TR4A cars actually have the very same FRAME as the IRS cars, they had to re-engineer the solid axle spring mounts back into the frame designed for IRS. Once the IRS cars had proved themselves perfectly sound, the US market moved over to all IRS cars.
If this was closer to my home, I’d buy it !
It does have the 4A corner lights. Grille looks like a 68 TR250, but that was a common upgrade back then. Steal of a price!
I hate to rain on the parade, but there are a few things that stand out with this ad.
1. When a deal is too good to be true, it usually is. (the price is crazy low)
2. The seller states “He did drive it before it sat up for 8 years”. Who is HE, and does this guy have a legal right to sell the car?
3. How can the car have “new tires” when the car hasn’t run in 8 years? Did he put new tires on a car sitting in the mud? 8 year old tires are considered not safe by any manufacturer.
I would RUN from this one. Thank you anyway.
@1st-rat
Hmmmm. yeah, you may be right. When I said “I’d buy it” I guess I meant “assuming it is legit”…. ha ha. Because you’re right the price is vey low.
My guess is this is being sold by a flipper and that is why the ad is saying “”He” did drive it”.
It’s being advertised as a parts car so there is probably a lot of stuff wrong with this car that isn’t being mentioned. Expect the floors, trunk and frame to be in bad shape. The engine is probably locked up “the car does not run current”. Notice how you never get to see the driver’s side of the car? I’d guess the rocker on that side is probably completely rotted away. And there must be a problem with the fenders and door on the drivers side. Maybe sideswiped somewhere along the way. What’s that brown stuff on the bottom of the passenger rocker? Rust, you say. Yeah, probably.
With all of that said, the price is really good for a parts car as the sheet metal that can be seen is probably worth that much. And, you never know, maybe all that stuff I mentioned above isn’t all that bad. That would be a bonus.
Not sure why the solid axle is considered “desireable”. I’d rather have the IRS. But to each,his own
He does have his phone number listed on the reply tab so I would say its probably legit. All the questions can be easily answered in a phone call. I think its a steal and if I were closer it would be mine. The hood itself has to be worth the asking price.
The TR4a/TR5/TR6 IRS is just about the only suspension “improvement” to increase unsprung weight and reduce suspension travel. It was always a compromised design and I’d personally prefer a solid axle to it. (There is a TR6 in the garage here…. but it’s the wife’s!)
Regarding the Katrina comment, I’m fairly familiar with the Gulfport area, and this shouldn’t be a concern. The Gulfport general area is something of a rarity along the Gulf Coast–the land rises fairly rapidly behind the beach, and only the first couple of city blocks back from the beach had major flooding during Katrina. According to the map, this fellow is considerably north of there on the main route from the beaches to I-10. Plus, the car is too clean. I saw a lot of flood cars after Katrina, and they were amazingly filthy, inside and out into every crevice, with grass shoved into every orifice and body joint. I had friends who found Gulf shrimp in the air conditioner vents. Another weird thing was that many of them had four flat tires, as if they had been a hundred feet underwater rather than just ten or so. All the modern cars had their windows down and trunk lids open, because as they submerged and their computers shorted out, everything that was electronically controlled went haywire–windows rolling up and down, alarms going off, lights flashing, you name it. It would have been quite a show, except that anybody in a position to see it would have been scrambling to save himself.
I also posted it on The Triumph Experience forum, one of the members in Tuscaloosa AL said he bought it. I was very tempted to add it to my salvage yard.
I am in Gulfport MS and this car ain’t bad for the money!