The Teutonic TR6

Serial automotive heretic Iain Ayre considers a new blasphemy – a TR6 with a BMW drivetrain.

Although something of an automotive dilettante, there is a strong Triumph thread running through my automotive history. The list remains incomplete without a TR6, but there are still thousands of gleaming standard TR6s lined up in shiny rows at car shows, and an alternative plan appeals – the rescue of a rough TR and a rebuild with Teutonic power.

The first car I really liked was the third car I ever owned, at 17, a grey 1961 Triumph Herald convertible, even though it tried to kill me by jacking up the rear suspension during a swerve on the A3 just by Roehampton, every millisecond still crystal clear. My first car had been a Ford Anglia, the second an Austin A40 donated by my Uncle after I crashed the first. There was a Herald estate which made a less ambitious attempt to kill me when the rear chassis leg came adrift and one of the rear wheels started steering all by itself. There were more Heralds, usually convertibles, and then as teenage poverty morphed into sporadic employment before going to college, the Vitesse period began, usually acquired quite late in their journey to the scrapyard. I remember generally liking the 1600cc engine better than the 2-litre. My mother bought a Vitesse as well, having liked the sound, feel and ambience of mine.

Other non-Triumph cars came and went, mostly unremarkable but also a HealeyMinster (an Austin Westminster with a Healey 3000 engine), a Falcon Caribbean, a Borgward, a Nobel and a Ford Capri RS2600. Then there was a Spitfire period.