TriumphTR4

Kas Kastner and the Triumph TR4

The American tuner who prepared the TR4s that won their class at Sebring in 1963, ran Triumph's competition department in the United States from that year, and built the TR4A that won the national D Modified championship in 1965.

About the pictureA TR4-family racer in Group 44 tribute livery at a 2024 historic race, not a car of his

A white Triumph TR racing car with number 44 and a roll cage passing a tyre wall at Summit Point.
Stand-in Summit Point, West Virginia, August 2024: a historic racer, a TR4A by its source, at the SVRA SpeedTour, not one of his cars.SmackJam, CC BY-SA 4.0

Anybody can give you romance, I can give you results.

Kas Kastner, as quoted by James T. Crow, Road & Track, June 1978

Robert William Kastner, known as Kas, was the man behind the TR4's racing in America. In March 1963 three TR4s from his garage at home took 1st, 2nd and 4th places in their class at Sebring, and within months he was running the importer's new competition department. His TR4A won a national championship in 1965, and in 1966 his TR4As took the same class at Sebring.⁠1​2​3​4

Life and roles in the TR4 years

Sources for Kas Kastner

Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠5; Moss Motoring, "Loud Pedal", 19 May 2021⁠6; Canley Classics, "Macau Spitfire"⁠7; Moss Motoring, "Press Release: British Sports Car Hall of Fame", 20 Mar 2017⁠8; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1960, Feb 1960⁠9; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2)⁠10; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results⁠2; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1964, Jan 1964 (vol. 10 no. 1)⁠11; Gordon H. Jennings, "Kas Kastner and his Super Triumph", Car and Driver, Feb 1966, pp. 48–49, 92⁠3; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3)⁠4; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4)⁠12; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results⁠13; Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94⁠14; James T. Crow, "Profile: Kas Kastner", Road & Track, Jun 1978 (vol. 29 no. 10), pp. 14–15, 18⁠1; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, October 1955, Oct 1955⁠15; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1959, Aug 1959⁠16; Leon Mandel, "TR-250K: Salvation of an Empire", Car and Driver, Apr 1968 (vol. 13 no. 10)⁠17; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1968, Feb 1968 (vol. 14 no. 2)⁠18; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1969, Apr 1969 (vol. 15 no. 4)⁠19; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1971, Feb 1971 (vol. 17 no. 2)⁠20

Salt Lake City was where it began: racing from 1952, in an MG TD, and a tuning shop of his own from the next year. He first raced a Triumph in 1954, a dealer's TR2 at Steamboat Springs, and won, Road & Track reported in 1978, and two wins at Cheyenne, Wyoming, in September 1955 went to an R. Kastner in a TR2, by the importer's owners' newsletter. He moved to southern California as a mechanic, and then service manager, at Williamson Motors, and in 1958 joined Cal Sales, Triumph's distributor for the western states.

Three West Coast championships fell to him in 1959, Pacific Coast Class E, the California Sports Car Club's and Motoracing's points title, in a TR3 that was also his daily transport, as the newsletter reported in February 1960. Moss Motoring quoted his view of that time in 2011: "In Class E Production in the '60s, if you didn't have a Triumph, you had no chance". Around 1960 or 1961 Standard-Triumph took over Cal Sales and barred its staff from racing, and Kastner stopped.

His job as the company's service supervisor in the West took in racing: competition parts for the TR4, the first guide to making a TR3 or TR4 ready for the track, and the programme that paid the expenses of more than 50 private drivers in 1962. "A development engineer is any guy who can sharpen a pencil with two different knives," he told Road & Track. The Sebring cars were his work and that of his shop foreman, Joe Valdes, and by his own account, as Moss Motoring reported it, Triumph would not pay him for them, Carroll Shelby offered him a job, and Triumph kept him by letting him set up a competition department in America, which he said was the first of any foreign maker there. By August 1963 the importer's newsletter called him the "recently-appointed Standard-Triumph Competitions-Manager".

The department's work ran wide. Kastner wrote a new preparation booklet in 1963, and the SCCA gave him its award for the best technical article in its magazine that year. Three of the works rally TR4s passed through his hands too, before the Shell 4000 of 1964. In 1965 he prepared three of the factory's Le Mans Spitfires for Sebring; in 1966 he was captain of the TR4A team there. In 1968 he built the TR250K. He stayed with Triumph to the end of 1970, then raced Triumphs with John Brophy, and later ran Nissan's motor sport in America. He died in 2021.⁠1​15​9​5​21​10​22​23​24​25​26​11​27​12​28​6

The TR4A Super Stock

When the TR4A arrived for 1965, the SCCA told Triumph it was too late to classify it for production racing, and that it could race only in D Modified. Kastner, as Car and Driver's Gordon H. Jennings put it, decided that he "would have a go at the D-modified class, but with a D-production automobile". His engines had already caused a stir: Jennings put his race engine at "slightly more than 150 bhp", on SU carburettors, a figure the factory's competition department doubted until Kastner shipped an engine to Coventry and it "pumped out 152 bhp". Jennings's report teased him:

Good ol' R. W. "Kas" Kastner, who is not the most kindly and understanding of men under any circumstances, promptly fell victim to a conniption-fit.

Gordon H. Jennings, Car and Driver, February 1966

The car he built, which Car and Driver called the TR4A Super Stock, had glass-fibre wings (fenders), bonnet (hood) and boot (trunk) lid, which Triumph had made for its rally cars, twin 45 mm Weber carburettors and, Jennings reported, 160 bhp at 6,000 rpm in a car weighing about 770 kg (1,700 lb). Its springs were about 10% stiffer at the front and 40% at the rear, with an anti-roll bar at the back and none at the front, and it ran on 127 mm (5 in) rims; the stub axles and the bolts of the lower arms, which had sheared, were strengthened. On a 4.3 axle with overdrive it was good for about 210 km/h (130 mph), and to 161 km/h (100 mph) it kept level with "a good 283 Corvette". Charlie Gates drove it to the national D Modified championship of 1965.⁠3​4​21

Roles

  1. 1958

    Service manager

    Cal Sales, Triumph's importer for 11 western states

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠5

  2. 1963

    Team manager

    1963–1970. Standard-Triumph's US competition department, which he set up after the 1963 Sebring race; he left Triumph at the end of 1970

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠5

  3. 1963

    Team manager

    23 March 1963. As Standard-Triumph's West Coast service supervisor he developed TR4 competition parts and wrote the first TR-3/TR-4 competition preparation booklet; with his shop foreman Joe Valdes he prepared the three Standard-Triumph TR4 hardtops that finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in the GT class up to 2.5 litres at Sebring on 23 March 1963. In April 1964 he did the final tuning of the three works TR4s for the Shell 4000 and drove the service car across Canada with Graham Robson

    Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2)⁠10; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results⁠2; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, November 1963, Nov 1963 (vol. 9 no. 10)⁠23; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1964, Jan 1964 (vol. 10 no. 1)⁠11; Steve McKelvie, "A Shell 4000 Triumph TR4 Works Rally Car", stevemckelvie.wordpress.com (blog), 20 Aug 2015⁠29

  4. 1965

    Team manager

    1965–1966. When the SCCA would not accept the TR4A for production racing in 1965 he built the TR4A Super Stock for D Modified, in which Charlie Gates won the national championship; he captained the TR4A team that finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the GT class up to 2.5 litres at Sebring on 26 March 1966, and took a near-stock TR4A to 128.20 mph at Bonneville

    Gordon H. Jennings, "Kas Kastner and his Super Triumph", Car and Driver, Feb 1966, pp. 48–49, 92⁠3; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3)⁠4; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4)⁠12; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results⁠13; Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94⁠14

  5. 1986

    Motorsport manager

    Nissan's US national motorsports manager

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠5

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. James T. Crow, "Profile: Kas Kastner", Road & Track, Jun 1978 (vol. 29 no. 10), pp. 14–15, 18, pp. 14–15, the headline; pp. 14–18: the MG TD of 1952; the dealer's TR2 at Steamboat Springs; Williamson Motors; Cal Sales; the racing ban; "A development engineer is any guy …". kaskastner.com/roadtrack1.pdf Reference
  2. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results, results. 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, 92: the SCCA's refusal; the 152 bhp engine; the car's specification; "Good ol' R. W. 'Kas' Kastner …"; pp. 48–49, 92. kaskastner.com/feb66.pdf Primary
  4. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3), Gates's 1965 championship; Gates, the national D Modified champion. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0366.pdf Primary
  5. Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011, racing from 1952; the tuning shop in Salt Lake City; "In Class E Production in the '60s …"; the payment refused, Shelby's offer and the department, in his account. mossmotoring.com Reference
  6. Moss Motoring, "Loud Pedal", 19 May 2021, his death in 2021. mossmotoring.com Reference
  7. Canley Classics, "Macau Spitfire". canleyclassics.com/api/archive/article/?q=macau-spitfire Reference
  8. Moss Motoring, "Press Release: British Sports Car Hall of Fame", 20 Mar 2017. mossmotoring.com Reference
  9. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1960, Feb 1960, p. 1; his three titles of 1959, in a TR3 he drove to work. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAFebruary1960.pdf Primary
  10. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2), West Coast Service Supervisor; the Sebring preparation. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0263.pdf Primary
  11. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1964, Jan 1964 (vol. 10 no. 1), the Shell 4000 cars in his shop. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0164.pdf Primary
  12. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4), team captain at Sebring, 1966. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0466.pdf Primary
  13. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results, results. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1966-03-26.html Database
  14. Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94, p. 93. kaskastner.com/roadtrack2.pdf Primary
  15. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, October 1955, Oct 1955, In Competition: the Cowboy State Sports Car Races, Cheyenne; R. Kastner's two wins at Cheyenne. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAOct1955.pdf Primary
  16. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1959, Aug 1959, p. 2. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAAug1959.pdf Primary
  17. Leon Mandel, "TR-250K: Salvation of an Empire", Car and Driver, Apr 1968 (vol. 13 no. 10). kaskastner.com/cardriver_apr1968.pdf Primary
  18. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1968, Feb 1968 (vol. 14 no. 2). vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAFeb68.pdf Primary
  19. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1969, Apr 1969 (vol. 15 no. 4). vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAAPR69.pdf Primary
  20. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1971, Feb 1971 (vol. 17 no. 2). vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAFeb71.pdf Primary
  21. Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 1: TR4 and TR4A", Ate Up With Motor, 22 Oct 2012, Cal Sales bought in 1961; Kastner's home garage; "TR4A and Triumph Super Stock". ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/triumph-tr4-tr4a/view-all Reference
  22. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1964, Mar 1964 (vol. 10 no. 3), the expense cheques, 1962. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0364.pdf Primary
  23. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, November 1963, Nov 1963 (vol. 9 no. 10), the new booklet, by R. W. Kastner. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA1163.pdf Primary
  24. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1963, Aug 1963 (vol. 9 no. 7), "recently-appointed Standard-Triumph Competitions-Manager". vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0863.pdf Primary
  25. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, September 1963, Sep 1963 (vol. 9 no. 8), Competitions Manager. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0963.pdf Primary
  26. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1965, Jan 1965 (vol. 11 no. 1), the SCCA's technical-article award. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOA0165.pdf Primary
  27. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1965, results, the three Spitfires. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1965-03-27.html Database
  28. Exhaust Notes (St Louis Triumph Owners Association), "Backwards Glance: Kas Kastner", Dec 2011, pp. 5, 8, the TR250K; Kastner-Brophy; Nissan. Reference
  29. Steve McKelvie, "A Shell 4000 Triumph TR4 Works Rally Car", stevemckelvie.wordpress.com (blog), 20 Aug 2015. stevemckelvie.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/a-shell-4000-triumph-tr4-works-rally-car Reference