TR2 vs TR6

For two sports cars with very different personalities, the TR2 and TR6 have a surprising amount in common under the skin. Wayne Scott compares first and last of the separate chassis TRs.

- Wayne Scott

There was a specific reason why you bought a TR6 when they were launched in 1969 – it was to prove you were a proper bloke, a throwback to a simpler time before the hedonism and flowery shirt-wearing of the 1960s had changed forever what it would mean to be a man. The TR6 captured this market because it had so much DNA in common with the TR2 that had been launched 16 years earlier in 1953. The world had changed vastly since then, but the TR clung on to its separate chassis construction and raw unadulterated British grit. Autocar dubbed it ‘the last of the real sportscars’ and when you consider that the Ford Capri was launched at the same motor show, you soon realize that the TR6 was in a class of its own, with nothing to compare it to except its own ancestors.

And that brings us to the TR2. Sitting in one, you quickly get a sense of its reputation for sporting ruggedness. The car, although tiny by today’s standards, feels solid and deceptively butch. The view through the tiny windscreen of the long bonnet stretching out instantly gives you that period of sports car feeling. The driving position is decidedly period too and you sit low, legs outstretched, on an incredibly deeply sprung bucket seat as your feet find the offset pedals in the long, deep footwells where the clutch pedal is almost directly in front of you.

The vintage feel is propagated further by a huge, thin-rimmed steering wheel that feels very close to your chest and constantly grazes your thighs. The knee room afforded to the taller driver is impressive for such a small car though and is achieved by the void between the dash and the transmission tunnel, which in the TR6 is restricted by the H-frame that houses the radio console and some of the switches. This means, rather counter-intuitively, that as far as leg room goes, a TR2 is a roomier experience than the TR6 for those over six foot tall.