Triumph TR4 Review

Bill Boddy of Motor Sport had a short drive before the car was released, for the magazine's September 1961 issue. On the M1 he saw an indicated 161 km/h (100 mph) in direct top, without overdrive, found that no fresh air came from the vents with the windows up, and added: "I believe the new Triumph has done 116 m.p.h." He came away convinced:

Car and Driver's report of the same autumn was an engineer's analysis with a brief drive around Coventry in a prototype hardtop, one that did not yet have the all-synchromesh gearbox. May found it quieter than the TR3, and "a step away from pur sang sport car character and towards the G.T. concept". In December Gordon Wilkins of Motor Trend timed a pre-production car with overdrive on a one-way run; the specification gives his figure. He noted a fair amount of roll in an emergency swerve, early brake linings that needed a heavy foot but stopped the car straight "with no dramatics whatsoever", and, on the left-hand-drive car, a gear lever and overdrive switch that both fell to the driver's right hand.

Road & Track, which also put the TR4 on its cover that October, called it "modern and homogenous", G. William Krause records, and a later test in the magazine concluded, as he quotes it, that "The TR4 offers excellent performance at a moderate initial cost and a sporting driver would search for a long time to beat the combination". Car and Driver, in a road test that Krause quotes without giving its date, stated the TR4's weakness bluntly: "If there is one important disadvantage in the TR4, it is certainly the design of the rear suspension."

In Britain, Autocar tested an open TR4 for its issue of 5 January 1962. That test has not been read, but the magazine quoted its figures again in 1963. Boddy, looking back on his year's motoring in February 1962, found a softer ride than the TR3's, with the same strong brakes, a quick and pleasant gear change and positive cornering. Autosport's Gregor Grant used a TR4 for rally-following in torrential rain and over Alpine passes for its test of September 1962, and found it weatherproof and its heating and ventilation far better than any earlier TR's. Motor Sport itself was still waiting at the London show that autumn: "The TR4 has been out a year but we still await one for road-test."⁠source 3​source 1​source 4​source 2​source 5​source 6​source 7​source 8

When it came, Motor Sport's car was a hardtop with overdrive, and its tester covered about 560 km (350 miles) in one day and 1,159 km (720 miles) in all. He liked the gearbox, with synchromesh on every forward gear, an engine that pulled from 1,000 rpm, the instruments, the shelter of the hardtop and the fuel range. He disliked the offset pedals and the long clutch travel, a weave at the front over 129 km/h (80 mph), a tail that broke away early in the wet, brakes that felt dead, rattles on bad roads, a leak at a window joint and the projections in the cockpit. Of the suspension he wrote that it "seems as if it has just happened instead of having been designed".

The car reached 113 km/h (70 mph) from rest in 16.5 seconds and returned 11.1 litres per 100 km (25.5 mpg, imperial) overall, a range of about 425 km (264 miles); its top speed is in the specification. The verdict was affectionate, and placed the car exactly:

He called it "a rugged, fast, typically British sports car, ideal for fun-and-games and rallying", and "excellent value".

The TR4A's tests in The Motor, Autocar, Car and Driver and Motor Trend have not been read; what they said is known through G. William Krause and Ate Up With Motor. They agreed that the independent rear suspension was the great change. Car and Driver called it "a considerable improvement" and the ride "fantastically improved", Krause reports. In Ate Up With Motor's summary the cure brought faults of its own: the softer rear end sank under acceleration and bottomed over dips, and lifting off mid-corner could let the tail run wide, a slide that the slower steering made harder to correct.

Car and Driver returned to the TR4A in February 1966 with Gordon H. Jennings's report on Kas Kastner's racing TR4A, in which a novice from the magazine held off a seasoned racer in an older car:

That December Road & Track opened its report on a second TR4A from Kastner's department by calling the model "one of the better all-round machines in the low-to-middle price range".⁠source 2​source 11​source 12​source 13

Car and Driver's readers had their say in 1964: in the class for GT and sports cars under $3,000 they chose the TR4, with the MGB second, the magazine reported in its May issue. Its own entry for the car, as the importer's newsletter reprinted it, explained why:

It added that the TR4 "still dominates whatever production racing class the SCCA happens to put it into".

Owners wrote to Motor Sport. In May 1963 one reported a year with a TR4 after a TR3, and was very satisfied. In February 1967 a TR4A owner described 21,700 km (13,500 miles) "virtually trouble-free", apart from scuttle shake and rattles; in April 1967 others defended the TR4A's brakes as "100% fade-free" and enjoyed its exhaust's "very deep burble"; and in March 1970 the owner of a 1964 TR4 reported it, at over 75,000 km (47,000 miles), "running as sweetly as ever".⁠source 14​source 15​source 16​source 17​source 18

The tests marked "Read" were read for this site. The rest are known through the notes on sources of Ate Up With Motor, which gives their pages in R. M. Clarke's Brooklands reprint, Triumph TR4 – TR5 – TR250 1961–1968, or through the source named in the last column.⁠source 11​source 19