Underdog day afternoon

Regularly - and unfairly - maligned in period, the Triumph TR7 and Jensen- Healey are overdue another look

- SIMON CHARLESWORTH

The Triumph TR7 and JensenHealey are truly the last of their kind. Not merely the last of their respective dynasties, but the last of Britain's mass-market, traditional, steel-bodied sports cars.

Certainly both have been heavily criticised and given as examples of Britain's 1970s industrial malaise. Whether in period or more recently, commentators and pundits have tarred them with the bitter brush of criticism. Lumps have been knocked out of these Brits for quality and reliability woes, rampant corrosion and even their styling. Yet here they remain, not merely still standing but looking resplendent after all these years and each with their own band of loyal enthusiasts. So surely they deserve a second chance?

The roots of both cars can be traced to the same chaotic corner of Britain's troubled motor industry. Today, it's easy to associate the British Leyland Motor Corporation (BLMC) with all manner of disaster, but the origins of the combine's problems were most definitely covered in British Motor Corporation (BMC) fingerprints. Among BMC's legion of issues was that it would spend huge sums on prototypes sometimes even multiple disparate concurrent prototypes, all intended to replace the same model - yet none would make it to production.

Healey suffered such a fate on multiple occasions. The 'Super Healey', also nicknamed Fireball XL5, came to nothing after swallowing £1m. The Healey Motor Co's own successor to the MkIII Austin-Healey 3000 was rejected, and although the MkIV 3000 was built and engineered, it didn't make production because it wasn't liked by boss Donald Healey. The problem was that it was clearly based on the MGC, itself an MGB doppelgänger. Plus, as his son Geoff would later write, its new heavier engine 'gave much trouble in early production form, and lacked the torque of the old unit'.