TriumphTR4

Notable Triumph TR4s

Four powder-blue works rally cars, three of which later crossed Canada, the Sebring hardtops no source read traces by commission number, Kastner's racing TR4A and the cars that came before and after: the TR4s and TR4As with histories of their own, and the copies built in their image.

A pale blue Triumph TR4 rally car with a matching hardtop, seen from the rear three-quarter at a show.
Seen from behind at Sherborne, Dorset, in July 2016, a pale blue TR4 hardtop wears 3 VC, the registration of a works rally car of 1962; no photograph can prove it is that car.Andrew Bone, CC BY 2.0

Early in 1962 four new TR4 hardtops, painted powder blue and registered 3 VC, 4 VC, 5 VC and 6 VC, went to Standard-Triumph's reopened competitions department. They are much written about, and the hardest to pin down: rebuilt, re-framed, sold abroad and brought back, and copied. This register follows them and the other TR4s and TR4As with a public history: the Sebring team cars, the racing TR4A that won a national championship, the prototypes that led to the TR4, and the first and last cars built. The cards below give each car with a record of its own.⁠1​2​3

Register

The works rally cars. The four cars ran the European rallies of 1962 and 1963, 6 VC as the team's reconnaissance and reserve car, and in 1964 three of them, on new frames with the steering on the left, ran the Shell 4000 across Canada before being sold in America. Classic & Sports Car's feature of 2021 found all four team cars still in existence, 3 VC arguably the least altered of them, though it gave no whereabouts for 5 VC.

The Sebring team cars. The importer's three TR4 hardtops of March 1963, from Kas Kastner's garage, ran as Nos 36, 37 and 38, and No. 36 won the class; in 1966 the importer's TR4As ran as Nos 39 to 42. Their commission numbers are in no source read, and the sources follow the 1963 cars no further than No. 38's appearance at the New York Auto Show that April and Triumph's gift of one of them to Bob Tullius.

George Waltman's TR4. Genser-Forman's service representative raced a near-standard TR4 at Sebring in 1962 with Nick Coné, and drove one alone there in 1963, finishing 5th in the class behind the factory team; racingsportscars also lists him at Nassau from 1963 to 1965.

Kastner's TR4A Super Stock. A TR4A with glass-fibre panels and twin Weber carburettors, it was Kastner's answer to the Sports Car Club of America's refusal to class the new car as a production model in 1965, and in it Charlie Gates became national D Modified champion.

The Bonneville TR4A. A near-standard coupé that Kastner's department ran on the salt at Bonneville and on the drag strips in 1966, setting class records that Road & Track reported.

Barry Martin's TR4. A private TR4 driven by Martin, from Toronto, also finished the 1964 Shell 4000, and racingsportscars lists him as the entrant of a Sebring TR4 in 1965, whose drivers it names only as Martin and Hill.

The prototypes. Before the TR4 came Giovanni Michelotti's TR3-based Dream Car of 1957, Zest of 1958 and the two Zoom cars of 1959, one with a lift-out panel in its hardtop's roof; according to Revington TR, that car survives. Two wide-track development cars of 1960, which Ate Up With Motor calls "TR3B" prototypes, carried the new chassis under an old body.

The first and the last. The cards below date the first and last TR4s and the last TR4A from Rimmer's list; no source read says whether any of them survives.

The TR4 Conrero. Racingsportscars lists a "Triumph TR4 Conrero" as a reserve entry at Sebring in 1963; no source read says whether it was built on a TR3 or a TR4.⁠1​4​2​5​6​7​8​9​3​10​11​12​13​14​15​16​17​18

Two pale blue Triumph TR4 rally cars parked side by side on grass in front of Sherborne Castle at a summer show.
3 VC on the right, 6 VC on the left: two of the 1962 works registrations, on rally TR4s at the Sherborne Castle show, Dorset, in July 2018; nothing in the picture shows whether they are the cars of 1962.Andrew Bone, CC BY 2.0

Replicas and re-used identities

The works TR4s have been copied. Revington TR sells works-pattern body parts, a works replica ran the Pirelli Classic Marathon of 1990 by Motor Sport's report, and Ate Up With Motor knows of a Dové turned out as a works competition car. A works registration on a powder-blue TR4 therefore proves nothing by itself.

Even the real cars are not what they were in 1962. The three that went to Canada were rebuilt in 1964 on new left-hand-drive frames, and 6 VC was written off on the Alpine Rally of 1963 and rebuilt, so a works TR4's frame may date from 1963 or 1964, not 1962.

A pale blue Triumph TR4 prepared in works-rally style, with extra spotlamps, a bonnet-mounted number plate and alloy wheels, on a busy car-show field.
Works-rally style on a TR4 that is not a works car: a plate on the bonnet (hood) and extra lamps.Calreyn88, CC BY-SA 4.0

Notable cars

  • Built 1962

    3 VC

    Survives

  • Built 1962

    4 VC

    Survives

  • Built 1962

    5 VC

    Survives

  • Built 1962

    6 VC

    Survives

  • The Bonneville TR4A

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1961

    CT1

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1965

    CT40304

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1967

    CTC78684

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1965

    Kastner's TR4A Super Stock

    Whereabouts unknown

  • Built 1959

    Zoom prototype (hardtop)

    Survives

Sources

Every source the site cites is on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  • Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
  1. Julian Balme, "TR4: Triumph's rally underdog", Classic & Sports Car, 4 Aug 2021, the works team and its survivors; the four cars; all four survive, 3 VC arguably the most original; the Shell 4000 rebuilds; new frames for the Shell 4000 cars. classicandsportscar.com/features/tr4-triumphs-rally-underdog Reference
  2. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results, results; results: Nos 36, 37, 38 and 39; the TR4 Conrero. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1963-03-23.html Database
  3. Gordon H. Jennings, "Kas Kastner and his Super Triumph", Car and Driver, Feb 1966, pp. 48–49, 92, the TR4A Super Stock; pp. 48–49, the TR4A Super Stock. kaskastner.com/feb66.pdf Primary
  4. Steve McKelvie, "A Shell 4000 Triumph TR4 Works Rally Car", stevemckelvie.wordpress.com (blog), 20 Aug 2015, 6 VC written off and rebuilt; the rebuilt 6 VC. stevemckelvie.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/a-shell-4000-triumph-tr4-works-rally-car Reference
  5. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results, results: Nos 39 to 42. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1966-03-26.html Database
  6. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March–April 1963 ("Sebring '63 Souvenir Issue"), Mar–Apr 1963 (vol. 9 no. 3), Sebring 1963 report; George Waltman alone. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA030463.pdf Primary
  7. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1962, Mar 1962, Waltman and Nick Coné, Sebring 1962. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/aTSOA0362.pdf Primary
  8. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1962, results, results, No. 37. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1962-03-24.html Database
  9. racingsportscars.com, "Triumph TR4 – All Results", Waltman at Nassau, 1963–65. racingsportscars.com/type/results/Triumph/TR4.html Database
  10. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3), Gates's 1965 D Modified championship. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0366.pdf Primary
  11. Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94, the Bonneville TR4A. kaskastner.com/roadtrack2.pdf Primary
  12. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, May 1964, May 1964 (vol. 10 no. 5), Barry Martin's TR4 on the Shell 4000. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0564.pdf Primary
  13. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1965, results, results: Martin and Hill. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1965-03-27.html Database
  14. Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 1: TR4 and TR4A", Ate Up With Motor, 22 Oct 2012, the Dream Car, Zest and Zoom; the two "TR3B" prototypes; Tullius's 1963 car, one of the Sebring team's; a Dové dressed as a works car. ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/triumph-tr4-tr4a/view-all Reference
  15. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, May 1963, May 1963 (vol. 9 no. 4), No. 38 at the New York Auto Show. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0563.pdf Primary
  16. G. William Krause, The Illustrated History of Triumph Sports and Racing Cars, CarTech, 2017, pp. 44–47, the prototypes. static.summitracing.com/global/images/technicalarticles/sad-ct596.pdf Reference
  17. Revington TR, "ZOOM Prototype" (TR Derivatives and Prototypes), Zoom page: the hardtop car survives. revingtontr.com/the-tr-series/tr-derivatives/zoom-prototype Reference
  18. Graham Robson (essay "15 Years of Evolution"), Triumph TR2 – TR3/3A, TR4/4A – TR5, TR250 1953–1968 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.1 (source code TR2512), Part 1, p. 7: CT1, CT40304, CTC78684 and CTC78687. rimmerbros.com/images/PDFs/TR2-5_Part1.pdf Reference
  19. Revington TR, Replica works rally TR4 body parts, replica works rally body parts. revingtontr.com Reference
  20. Motor Sport, "Veteran to Classic – Triumph TR", Dec 1990, p. 54, a works replica TR4 on the Pirelli Classic Marathon, June 1990. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-1990/54/veteran-classic-triumph-tr Reference