TriumphTR2

Triumph TR2 Review

What the motoring press made of the TR2, from the surprise of the 1952 show to the American tests of 1955: its speed for the money, its economy and its gearbox, the brakes, looks and sidescreens it was criticised for, and the rivals it was measured against.

A black TR2 with a maroon hood, wire wheels and two spot lamps in its air intake, in a small motor museum among other old cars.
A black TR2 with a maroon hood (soft top) and wire wheels at the Moretonhampstead Motor Museum, Devon, in 2024.kitmasterbloke, CC BY 2.0

The TR2 was a car the press could test. It was quick, cheap and open, and from the first show report to the last American test it was measured against what else the money would buy. Not every test survives in a form that can be read. Motor Sport's reports from 1952 to 1955, Motor Trend's first drive and full test of 1954 and Sports Cars Illustrated's test of 1955 can be read in full; The Motor's test is known only at second hand, The Autocar's has not been found, and the table below says which is which.

No full timed test of a TR2 by Motor Sport was found: in February 1955 its editor explained that the makers had asked him not to make one.⁠1​2​3

At launch, 1952–55

The 20TS prototype of October 1952 was reported as a surprise, and an encouraging one:

Another Show surprise was the new Triumph sports model, for here was a stark open fast car, with provision for carrying only limited luggage behind the seats and with no elaborate weather protection, listed by one of the "Big Five."

W.B., "Survey of the New Sports-Cars", Motor Sport, December 1952

The Jabbeke speed test, in May 1953, turned curiosity into excitement. Bill Boddy, who had not been invited, wrote that he could "be excused if I suppose it was done with the aid of mirrors !", and then that the car could not fail, he thought, "to take world markets by storm". At the Paris show that autumn Denis Jenkinson found it "slab-sided", with a "clumsy-looking windscreen" but a "nicer looking lengthened tail". On a short drive at the Guild of Motoring Writers' test day at Goodwood, Boddy found "Very impressive urge" and a pleasant gearchange, and brakes that "tended to be fierce unless a light application was used".

America took to it at once. Motor Trend's first drive, early in 1954, found it "solid", with quick steering and "good manners in the corners", and its managing editor, Jim Potter, added to the full test in May: "I see no reason why the TR-2 won't sell, unlesss the bottom completely drops out of the sports car market—which it certainly has given no indication of doing." Not everyone was won over: at that spring's New York show Motor Sport's correspondent thought "the TF M.G. was still the star of the small sports cars in American eyes".

By the spring of 1955, after the TR2's second RAC Rally, Motor Sport could call it "our leading moderately priced sports car". The American owners' club polled its members that year, and of the 227 who answered, 90 per cent rated every one of 12 points about the car satisfactory or better.⁠1​4​5​6​7​8​9​10​11

The tests and reports

Test or reportDateWhat it wasWhat has been read
Motor Sport, Bill BoddyNovember 1952The London show report: the 20TSThe Triumph passage
Motor Sport, W.B.December 1952A survey of the new sports cars, with pricesThe whole text
Motor Sport, W.B.June 1953Stop-press news of the Jabbeke runsThe whole text
Motor Sport, Bill BoddyJuly 1953A survey of Britain's sports carsThe whole text
Motor Sport, W.B.December 1953A short drive at the Guild of Motoring Writers' test dayThe Triumph passage
Motor TrendFebruary 1954A first drive in AmericaThe whole text
Autosport, John Bolster5 March 1954A road testIts figures and one line, quoted in an American dealer's advertisement
Motor Sport, W.B.March 1954"The Magic Century!", on the cars that reached 100 mphThe whole text
The Motor7 April 1954A full road test of two cars, with and without overdriveIts figures, as Wikipedia reports them
Motor Trend, Walt WoronMay 1954A full road test: acceleration, braking, fuel, priceThe whole text
The Motor's road tests of 19541955The magazine's annual of testsMotor Sport's review of it
Sunday Express, Mike Hawthorn1954 or 1955A reportOne sentence, quoted by readers of Motor Sport
Road & Track1954 or 1955A road testOne figure, in a reader's letter
Motor Sport, W.B.February 1955"Impressions of the Triumph TR2", with no timed figuresThe whole text
TSOA NewsletterMay 1955A poll of 227 American ownersThe whole text
Sports Cars Illustrated, Al BrannonNovember 1955"Trying the Triumph": acceleration and maximum speedThe whole text

The figures these tests timed are set out, test by test, on the Triumph TR2 specs page.⁠12​1​13​4​6​7​14​15​16​9​17​18​3​2​11

What the testers said

They agreed on the performance. Walt Woron called the car "a miniature bomb" in Motor Trend, and from a standstill to the quarter-mile it beat all but four of 22 American cars of the 1953 model year; Boddy found that "Acceleration is vivid, to express oneself mildly". To Boddy the car was "surprisingly economical", and Woron called its economy "nothing short of phenomenal". The gearbox (transmission) pleased them too: "The gearbox is good and the shift short and very positive", Al Brannon wrote in Sports Cars Illustrated.

The handling divided them. Boddy found "an oversteer tendency, leading to sudden rear-end breakaway", and a faint suspicion that the rear axle was not quite positively located, but in general, he wrote, "the TR2 is a safe, charming motor car"; Brannon answered the rumours that the car did not handle by saying it could easily be overdriven. The brakes were "fierce under a light pedal depression" for Boddy, while Motor Trend found no fade and every stop in a straight line. Boddy thought the ride exceptionally comfortable, even on unmade roads, but noted scuttle shake.

The looks and the weather equipment drew the most complaints. Motor Trend's caption allowed that the car "probably won't win any prizes for beauty", Brannon thought the front end "still a little too stark", and the doors had no outside handles. The sidescreens' fasteners, Brannon found, "sometimes require pliers" to undo. Boddy summed it up in February 1955:

In conclusion, the Triumph TR2 may not possess "character" to any appreciable degree, but as a vice-free sports car of modest price and fuel-thirst, no one with £887 to spend can afford to ignore it.

W.B., "Impressions of the Triumph TR2", Motor Sport, February 1955

Brannon's summary, at the end of 1955, was that everyone who drove the car thought it "if anything, too potent", and that he had not enjoyed driving a car so much since the MG TC was new. The racing driver Mike Hawthorn, reporting for the Sunday Express, is quoted by two readers of Motor Sport as writing that "for the money there cannot be a sports car in the world to touch the Triumph TR2"; his report itself was not read.⁠9​3​2​6​18​11

A white TR2 with its black hood and sidescreens up, parked on grass at a show, spot lamps in its air intake.
The weather equipment the testers argued over: a long-door TR2, hood and sidescreens up and no outside door handle, at Hoghton Tower, Lancashire, in June 2015.Steve Glover (SG2012), CC BY 2.0

Against its rivals

Motor Sport's survey of the 1952 show put the 20TS and the Austin-Healey 100 in the same company, two of four new British sports cars there, and the magazine paired them again in March 1954:

What is remarkable is the fact that this speed is achieved by two very inexpensive British sports models. I refer to the £595 Triumph TR2 and the £750 Austin-Healey 100

W.B., "The Magic Century!", Motor Sport, March 1954

The table gives the rivals' prices from the period sources: in Britain the basic prices, before purchase tax, from Motor Sport's survey of December 1952, and in the United States Motor Trend's price guide of June 1955. The Triumph TR2 home page gives the TR2's own price at launch.

RivalBasic price in Britain, December 1952Price in America, 1955Why it was compared
Austin-Healey 100£850$2,985New at the same show in 1952; paired by Motor Sport in 1954 and by owners in 1955
MG TD (MG TF in America)£530$1,995, the TF 1500In Motor Sport's survey of July 1953; the TF the star of the 1954 New York show, Motor Sport thought
Morgan Plus Four£565$2,595Offered with the TR2's engine from 1954
Jaguar XK120 (XK140 in America)£1,130$3,450, the XK140In Motor Sport's survey of July 1953
Sunbeam AlpineNot found$2,699Its Jabbeke speed in Motor Sport's survey of July 1953; the 1954 Alpine Rally
Swallow Doretti£777 in November 1954$2,905Built with the TR2's engine, gearbox and axle

Motor Trend found the Doretti "lots more than just a snob-type Triumph TR-2". The owners argued in Motor Sport's letters pages through 1955. To one Healey owner there was little between them on performance, the TR2 a little quicker away and the Healey catching it higher up the speed range. "The TR2 is essentially a rally car," the owner wrote, "while the Austin-Healey is essentially a circuit-type car." An owner who had run both reported "32 m.p.g. over 7,000 miles against the Austin-Healey's 23", and a reader in Australia wrote that he had seen the Triumph win scratch races against Healeys and Jaguars. A London dealer's comparison folder for the TR2, Motor Sport noticed, left the Austin-Healey out altogether.

In competition the honours were split. The Healey finished ahead of the best TR2 at Sebring in 1954 and in the Mille Miglia in 1954 and 1955, but the TR2 won the 1954 RAC Rally outright, and the TR2s took the team prize on the 1954 Alpine Rally, a prize that, Motor Sport wrote the next summer, the Rootes team's Sunbeams had lost to them. At Oulton Park in October 1955, Motor Sport reported, it was a Morgan Plus Four that beat the Austin-Healeys, the AC Aces and the TR2s.⁠1​15​6​16​19​20​21​22​23​18​24​25​26​27​28​29​30​31​32

A dark green Austin-Healey 100 with a curved vertical-bar grille, wire wheels and two spot lamps, parked on gravel beside a blue Austin-Healey.
The Austin-Healey 100, photographed in January 2014: of all the rivals, the one most often compared with the TR2.Sicnag, CC BY 2.0
A pale blue Morgan Plus 4 with an upright slatted grille in a rounded nose, separate headlamps and chrome hub caps, parked on grass at a village show.
A Morgan Plus Four of the early 1950s, photographed in June 2026; from 1954 the Plus Four was offered with the TR2's engine.kitmasterbloke, CC BY 4.0
A pale blue Swallow Doretti roadster with a wide horizontal-bar grille, a bonnet scoop and wire wheels, on a museum floor among other cars.
A Swallow Doretti, built with the TR2's engine, gearbox and axle, at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon, in 2018.Vauxford, CC BY-SA 4.0
A pale metallic blue Sunbeam Alpine roadster with an upright grille, two spot lamps and steel wheels, on a museum floor before wall posters.
A Sunbeam Alpine Mark I at the British Motor Museum, Gaydon, in 2018; on the 1954 Alpine Rally the team prize went to the TR2s.Vauxford, CC BY-SA 4.0

Sources

Every source the site cites is on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
  • Uncheckedencyclopaedias and enthusiast sites: cited beside a good source, named in the sentence, or marked Unchecked
  1. Bill Boddy ("W.B."), "Survey Of The New Sports-Cars", Motor Sport, Dec 1952, p. 19, p. 19; p. 19, the four new British sports cars; price table, "Purchase Tax not included". motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-1952/19/survey-of-the-new-sports-cars Primary
  2. Al Brannon, "Trying the Triumph", Sports Cars Illustrated, Nov 1955, pp. 19–21, pp. 19–21. Primary
  3. Bill Boddy ("W.B."), "Impressions of the Triumph TR2", Motor Sport, Feb 1955, p. 30, p. 30, no performance figures; p. 30. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/february-1955/30/impressions-of-the-triumph-tr2 Primary
  4. Bill Boddy, "The Sports Cars of Britain", Motor Sport, Jul 1953, p. 19, p. 19, "the aid of mirrors !"; "take world markets by storm"; p. 19. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/july-1953/19/the-sports-cars Primary
  5. Denis Jenkinson ("Paris-Montlhéry"), Earls Court and Paris show reports (group): "Review of Earls Court" (p. 11), "Motor Show Comment" (p. 36), "Paris-Montlhéry" (p. 44), "On the Earls Court Motor Show" (p. 47), Motor Sport, Nov 1953, pp. 11, 36, 44, 47, "Paris-Montlhéry", p. 44; "Motor Show Comment", p. 36. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-1953/47/on-the-earls-court-motor-show Primary
  6. Bill Boddy, "Rumblings" and "Matters of Moment" (group), Motor Sport, Dec 1953, pp. 9, 31, the Guild test day at Goodwood; the Guild test day; the Goodwood drive; "Matters of Moment", the Jowett Jupiter R4. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/december-1953/31/rumblings-december-1953 Primary
  7. Motor Trend, First-drive feature on the TR2 ("the first TR-2 to reach the Coast"), Feb 1954, the first drive. Primary
  8. Motor Sport, "New York Show", May 1954, p. 40, p. 40. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1954/40/new-york-show Primary
  9. Walt Woron, "Driving around with Walt Woron: Triumph TR-2", with "The Story in Figures", Motor Trend, May 1954, pp. 39–41, 51, p. 41, Jim Potter; pp. 39–41 and 51. Primary
  10. Motor Sport, "Standard's convincing success in difficult R.A.C. Rally", Apr 1955, p. 17, p. 17, "our leading moderately priced sports car". motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-1955/17/stardards-convicing-successin-difficullt-rac-rally Primary
  11. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, May 1955, May 1955 (vol. I), the owners' poll. vintagetriumphregister.org/tsoa/TSOAMay1955.pdf Primary
  12. Bill Boddy, "Earls Court Review", Motor Sport, Nov 1952, p. 41, p. 41. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-1952/41/earls-court-review Primary
  13. Bill Boddy ("W.B."), "Stop Press – A Fast Triumph", Motor Sport, Jun 1953, p. 50, p. 50. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/june-1953/50/stop-press-a-fast-triumph Primary
  14. Motor Trend, Triumph advertisements (group): Standard-Triumph Motor Company Inc. (Apr 1954); Cal Sales Inc. (Aug and Sep 1954), Apr, Aug and Sep 1954, Cal Sales advertisement, August 1954, quoting Autosport. Primary
  15. Bill Boddy ("W.B."), "The Magic Century!", Motor Sport, Mar 1954, p. 19, p. 19. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/march-1954/19/the-magic-century-2 Primary
  16. Wikipedia (EN), "Triumph TR2", 2026, road test figures, citing The Motor, 7 April 1954; The Motor's "lowest price" claim. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_TR2 Unchecked
  17. Motor Sport, "Book Reviews", May 1955, p. 46, p. 46. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1955/46/book-reviews-may-1955-may-1955 Primary
  18. Motor Sport, Readers' letters, "Triumph TR2 versus Austin-Healey" (group), May 1955, p. 54; Jul 1955, p. 55; Aug 1955, p. 53; Oct 1955, p. 55, letters, July and October 1955: Hawthorn; August 1955: Road & Track; letters, July and October 1955, quoting Mike Hawthorn; letters, May, July and October 1955. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1955/54/triumph-tr2-versus-austin-healey-2 Primary
  19. Motor Sport, "Rumblings", Feb 1954, p. 17, p. 17, the Vanguard-engined cars. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/february-1954/17/rumblings-february-1954 Primary
  20. Motor Sport, "Rumblings", May 1954, p. 41, p. 41, the Morgan with the TR2 engine. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-1954/41/rumblings-may-1954 Primary
  21. Bill Boddy, "'Motor Sport' Tests – The 2-Litre Swallow Doretti", Motor Sport, Nov 1954, p. 40, p. 40. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-1954/40/motor-sport-tests-the-2-litre-swallow-doreatti-sm Primary
  22. Motor Trend, Swallow Doretti road test, Sep 1954, the Doretti against the TR2. Primary
  23. Motor Trend, Imported-car specification table (pp. 33–34) and price guide (pp. 56–58), Jun 1955, pp. 33–34, 56–58, price guide, pp. 56–58. Primary
  24. Motor Sport, "The Triumph TR2 in Australia" (letter), Apr 1955, p. 49, p. 49. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-1955/49/letters-from-readers-435 Primary
  25. Motor Sport, "Comparisons", Jun 1955, p. 48, p. 48. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/june-1955/48/comparisons Primary
  26. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1954, results, results. racingsportscars.com/results/Sebring-1954-03-07.html Database
  27. racingsportscars.com, Mille Miglia 1954, results, results. racingsportscars.com/results/Mille_Miglia-1954-05-02.html Database
  28. racingsportscars.com, Mille Miglia 1955, results, results. racingsportscars.com/results/Mille_Miglia-1955-05-01.html Database
  29. Motor Sport, "Triumph TR2 Wins The R.A.C. Rally", Apr 1954, p. 26, p. 26. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-1954/26/triumph-tr2-wins-the-rac-rally Primary
  30. Motor Sport, "Matters Of Moment" (the 1954 Alpine Rally), Sep 1954, p. 15, p. 15, the Alpine Rally. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/september-1954/15/matters-of-moment-september-1954 Primary
  31. Bill Boddy, "The Rootes Group and Competition Motoring", Motor Sport, Jul 1955, p. 20, p. 20, the Alpine team prize. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/july-1955/20/the-rootes-group-and-competition-motoring Primary
  32. Bill Boddy, "The Editor Discusses Show Business", Motor Sport, Nov 1955, p. 25, p. 25, Oulton Park. motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/november-1955/25/the-editor-discusses-show-business Primary