Ah, yes: the Triumph TR8, otherwise known as the British Corvette and one of the coolest cars the automaker has ever made. There’s a small but loyal following for these cars today, as it is still somewhat unrecognized as a desirable and attainable classic. While you won’t get one for a bargain basement price, the $22,000 being asked for this 1982 model listed here on craigslist still seems quite fair when considering the rarity, the performance, and in the case of our subject car, the fact that it was completely restored by a local club with full documentation. For a collector-grade performance car, that’s pretty hard to beat in today’s market.
Credit the quality issues plaguing British-Leyland for the TR8 never enjoying its day in the sun (at least not yet.) The Prince of Darkness was no stranger to the likes of Triumph, and as such, it may have been hard for the motoring public to see the appeal of a V8-powered roadster. However, the car world did eventually realize it was sleeping on the TR8, and enthusiasts on both sides of the pond warmed to the rare model in the following years. After all, even with all of its foibles, a British roadster is still immensely charming, and finding one with a snorty V8 under the hood paired to a manual transmission fixes most any quality concern with one blip of the throttle.
Other issues made the TR8 a hard sell, mostly having to do with the global economy. The TR8 was an expensive car in the states, outpacing many other sports models from the U.S. and Japan available for less without a dramatic difference in performance but a potentially huge swing in quality. After all, a Datsun 280ZX didn’t have nearly as many electrical gremlins as a British brand at the time, but it certainly couldn’t emit the same engine and exhaust symphony the way a TR8 could. Sadly, only 2,750 TR8s were sold, with all of them spread across the U.S. and Canada.
The seller’s car was apparently found in pieces, and is one of only 70 or so 1982 models sold in Canada, according to the seller. It wore Cashmere Gold paint when it was new, and this is a deliciously period-correct color; I would absolutely respray it this shade if it were mine. The listing notes that the engine grenaded in the late 90s and was disassembled before the owner fell ill and the project stalled; the car was acquired by a local Triumph enthusiast club and put back together to the tune of $16,000 CDN, not including bodywork and fresh paint (why they didn’t go back to the original color is beyond me.) Horsepower seems humble at 148 when fuel injection was introduced, but Lord, it still has a great bark. What a cool car! Wish it was in the U.S. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Curvette for the tip.
A car that was designed too late to save Triumph. Not putting the V8 in the cars following the successful TR6 was a very bad move. For all you who cry about going back to original colors, “show me the money”.
The gold color is great, i agree i wouldnt have changed it. But the cost of painting a car is out of control. So pretty much stuck with it.
I’m told that black is the (relatively) cheapest paint color and the most expensive is red. Not that I’d do a color change for very modest savings,
considering the current price of a good paint job.
I’ve looked at importing an antique car from Canada to the US and it always seemed to be straight forward and free or at least not expensive. NOT a political comment, but tariffs may have changed that. And Vancouver isn’t far from Washington state, so if you’re in the northwest it shouldn’t bother you.
The fuel injection is a plus and a rarity…somewhere around 500 imported I recall. I had an ’81 and the fuel injection never gave an issue except a few hot starts when we first got it. Drove across the country and through Europe enjoying every minute. The A/C froze me out of the car in a Midwest summer.
I owned a Poseidon green TR8, bought it new at the dealer in Oak Park, Illinois. Great little car with a somewhat weak transmission.
Too bad they couldn’t source the correct upholstery for this one.
A Corvette has never been built, that is as big a pile of junk as the TR8.
I don’t know… I had a work friend that bought a 1st or 2nd year C4… and it was pretty much a turd…
I have only had C3’s. Very easy to maintain, easy to work on, with the exception of body work. And any C3 I owned would run away from a TR 8 without a problem. The TR6 is very cool though.
Run away from?… are we talking in a drag race?… Stock?… Comparing same year?… say 1980. Maybe with the L82, by a smidge. But if it had the L48 or the 305 (whatever its designation was)… not likely. And on a road course… I’ve never driven a C3 so I can’t comment. But I have driven several TR7s and a TR8, and they do have a pretty competent chassis…
A 69 with a 396 aluminum heads 4spd with 4:11s and a 79 with an L76 327, also 4:11s. Both are very strong in a straight line. The 79 does handle much better. A TR8 would need a lot of work to hang with either vette.
Ha, ha… well neither of your configurations is stock… so now its just a game of how big is one’s budget… Not the point I was making. Enjoy.
I get your point but a TR 8 wouldn’t hang with very many stock corvettes straight line or in the turns. A TR8 would struggle to out perform a 85 Dodge Daytona turbo Z.
Not true. I’d take this over the 77 Corvette I once owned any day.
I have to make a correction here. The term British Corvette was used for the Daimler SP250 Dart. As it was a V8 (hemi no less) AND a fiberglass body. The TR8 is not fiberglass. These do have a very nice exhaust note/sound. Lots of TR7s around with that terrible Lotus engine. And plenty of room under the hood for a small block Ford. Build your own!
These never had a Lotus engine.Look up pictures of the
Lotus 907 engine,& compare it with the Triumph 4 cylinder
that came in the TR7.Not the same engine.
I’m sorry, your correct. I was thinking Jensen Healey. I knew about Dolomite. But my old feeble brain skipped a beat or two. But what I said about room for a small block Ford still applies. And Standard TR7s are plentiful and reasonably priced.
The TR7 engine came from the Domalite.
And the 907 wasn’t a bad engine, it wasn’t fully developed when it went i. The Jensen Healey. But became pretty powerful in the Espirit. It did require routine serious maintenance like changing the timing belt. And the American consumer historically is not good at that.
IMHO Triumph stood apart from the other manufacturers in a good way. From the TR2 thru the TR8 they addressed the enthusiast. With proper knowledge, all negative legends could easily be mitigated. Great cars in the proper hands. Nice find, thank you for sharing.
I owned a Stag for 9 years… was not my daily driver, but in the time I had it, outside of the occasional vapor lock with hot starts on a hot day (which plagued many a ’70s car) its infamous V8 gave me no problem at all. It’s my experience that certain vehicle reputations… positive or negative… are exaggerated and perpetuated by those that never actually owned one… ex: the “fix it again Tony” posts any time a FIAT appears on these pages… …or the LUCAS warm beer comments any time a British car is here.
Back in the 80s I had a TR7 when living in San Diego. We went up to Goletta for a Moss get together. We were parked next to a Stag and talked to the owner. He told me he re-engineered the entire cooling system to fix the overheating issue. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I think originally the coolant flow goes from one bank to the other? Sorry if that’s wrong, but second hand info from 40 years ago is prone to memory errors. Isn’t the stag V8 the basis of the TR7 engine? Which the head bolts were problematic?
Often wanted a stag. Find one without an engine and put the rover V8 in in as they should have in the first place
The Triumph V8 used in the Stag and the slant 4 used in the TR7 were part of a joint development for a family of engines.. The 4 is very much just the V8 with a bank of cylinders missing (an over simplification but basically correct). Interesting side note is the first production version of the 4 cylinder version saw the light of day in the Saab 99… in 1.7L capacity… later enlarged to 1.8L. Saab used it from ’68 to ’72 when they went with their own design heavily based on the Triumph engine.
The Stag V8 is not the TR8 V8, the TR8 V8 is the Rover V8, basically a sand cast block version of the old Buick 215 ci (3508cc) motor that ended up being the motor in the first two generations of Range Rover and Land Rover Discovery. Those later Rover motors had bigger capacity, (4.0 and 4.6 liters) and are a straight forward swap into the TR8 – then you can re-run the versus Corvette argument again. It’s quite easy to get 300+ hp out of the later, bigger motors.
Junk when new now just old junk!
Known as the ugly triumph. My father-in-law gave me one of these, but we never drove it much. He tried to put a Buick engine in it with a conversion kit. Finally, he ended up giving it away along with boxes of parts, because no one would buy it. Here’s the clue, no one in the triumph club would talk to me when I owned it. Seriously, not joking, the car was radioactive among other triumph owners.
Of course the “8” refers to the aluminum Olds/Buick V8 engine that Rover bought from GM in the mid 60’s. It was a jewel of an engine but just too costly to build for the General, who then used the tooling to create the Olds/Buick 198/231 V6 which became the 3800 and made the Ward’s 10 Best Engines of the 20th Century list. I saw a video history of the Triumph Stag that concluded that if they had just used that existing Rover V8 instead of trying to develop an all new engine, it would have worked out much better. :-) Terry J
having both the TR7 and TR8, i can say Leyland wasted their time putting that terrible 4 cylinder in that body. Mine was fuel injected and as soon as i put an Offenhouser manifold, Carter AFB and a points distributor out on an oldsmobile, it was very reliable and never left me stranded (unlike the TR7).