When I grew up the Triumph Dolomite was everywhere. And there’s a good reason why. Triumph was known for its sports cars, and
luxury saloons, and the Dolomite, and specifically the Dolomite Sprint carried that sports pedigree
into the compact class. It was the first multi-valve production saloon,
producing more power than a compact luxury saloon had a right to in 1973. It’s a winning formula that’s been replicated
many times since, but 7 years and half a million cars later production ended. What was the complicated genesis of this car,
and what did British Leyland follow it up with? This is the Triumph Dolomite Story. (music) Triumph released the Herald in 1959, but with slow initial sales, and an influx of cash
with Triumph’s sale to Leyland at the end of 1960, they started looking at a replacement
as early as 1962. The British Motor Corporation or BMC had shook
up the automotive world with their front wheel drive Mini the same year the Herald had launched,
and Triumph knew BMC were following it up with the larger, front wheel drive Austin
1100 and 1300. To compete, they decided the Herald’s successor
should also be front wheel drive. Like the Mini, the gearbox would sit under
the engine, but unlike the Mini the engine would sit longitudinally. And it would be a bigger engine than the Herald;
an enlarged 1300 engine from the recently launched Spitfire. Styling would be by Triumph’s favourite
Italian designer – Giovanni Michelotti – who by this stage had been called on for all Triumph’s
new cars. The remit was to make the car look like a
smaller version of the upcoming Triumph 2000, and two-door shapes were duly drawn up. As development continued, sales of the Herald
improved, to the point that Triumph now didn’t feel a need to immediately replace it. With the Triumph 2000 now in customers hands
and doing well, it was decided that the new car would be enlarged to become a new 4-door
model between the Herald and the 2000 and pitched as a compact executive saloon. To compliment the 2000, it was named the Triumph
1300 and launched in 1965 where it got a warm reception from the press. It cost more than the Austin 1300, its main
competition, but you got more, with lots of chrome on the outside, and a luxurious interior
with a wooden dashboard and high quality materials. The car even got something rarely seen even
on high priced cars at this time – a steering wheel that was adjustable for both height
and rake. It’s a shame the same couldn’t be said
for the seats that couldn’t be reclined! Sales weren’t exactly spectacular, they
were slow and steady, as the Austin 1100 and 1300 continued to rule the roost. While the Triumph 1300 was only launched as
a saloon, an estate was investigated with a prototype produced by an outside company. But with sales not justifying the outlay,
money was put into other endeavours, such as the 1967 1300TC or Twin Carburettor. Triumph was known for motorsports, and sporty
models like this would help it reach new customers. Top speed was improved to 90mph (145 km/h)
with sporty acceleration, but the newly imposed 70mph (113 km/h) speed limit on UK motorways
rather put a bit of a dampener on testing out the top speed! Triumph were playing from a playbook that
would become well known in years to come. The Triumph 2000 and Rover P6 were luxury
executive cars that the growing middle class aspired to, like the BMW 5-series and Audi
A6 today, and the 1300 was a compact executive saloon like the BMW 3-series, with the TC being a
sporty version like the M3. The Herald had started selling well, but it
couldn’t go on forever, and new money wasn’t all that forthcoming from owners Leyland. They’d purchased competitor BMC who produced
that pesky Austin competitor, and with the Austin 1100 and 1300 selling well, what little
money there was went to producing its successor. That meant a completely new design was out,
so Triumph dusted off the old 1300 designs from the days when it was going to be the
Herald’s replacement. Of course, one problem Triumph faced was the
1300’s higher price, and this was born out not just from the higher trim level, but from
the higher cost to manufacture. The 1300’s front wheel drive package was
more complex than Austin’s, which made it more expensive to produce, and the front suspension
required constant maintenance. Handling wasn’t as good as Triumph had hoped
from this new design and to cap it all, the engine and gearbox layout made for a high
bonnet line, which meant reusing the 1300’s chassis for sports cars like the Spitfire
was ruled out. Something had to be done, so the decision
was taken to make the car rear wheel drive, rather oddly at a time when cars were moving
from rear wheel drive to front wheel drive. This wasn’t the only time British Leyland
or its successors would do this, as the front wheel drive Rover 75 would be turned into
the rear wheel drive MG ZT 260 in 2003. A by-product of this work was that the chassis
could be designed to drive all four wheels. Triumph would experiment with an off-roading
vehicle they dubbed the Triumph Pony. The 1300 was already produced in Israel with
a larger 1500cc engine, and the factory would use the Triumph Pony design to make the Autocars
Dragoon. Triumph’s motorsport team would enter a
4WD car into Autocross events in 1969, a decade before Audi would clean up with their Quattro. With the work done to make the 1300’s design
cheaper to manufacture, Triumph worked on simplifying the suspension and removing its
fancier bits to make a new less expensive car, dubbed the Toledo. As it used the 1300’s chassis the new car
was a good bit larger than the Herald, and as it got new styling ended up being 7cm (3”)
longer than the 1300 itself! The Toledo with its new front and rear shape
would launch in 1970. The interior was more basic than the 1300,
but it still used a wooden dashboard in an age where cheaper black plastic ruled. Triumph would take this new style, make a
few front and rear changes including a couple of extra headlights and a larger 1500cc engine,
and release the car, rather logically, as the Triumph 1500. But it would keep the 1300’s more expensive
front wheel drive layout. The new style made the 1500 slightly bigger
than the Toledo, but there wasn’t much in it. In fact, large parts of the body could be
shared between the two models, saving money on each car produced. The Toledo used the smaller 1300cc engine,
but to confuse things even more it got the larger 1500 engine, twin carbs and 4 doors
initially for the export market but eventually at home as well, making this almost identical
to its slightly larger sibling. So, to all intents and purposes the 1500 was
the premium model, and the Toledo was for cost conscious buyers. The 1500 would continue to be refined, with
a twin carb version being launched in 1973, but more was to come. Triumph had produced a 4-cylinder engine for
SAAB in the late 1960s. They’d joined two together to make a V8
for the ill-fated Triumph Stag, but after a short period of exclusivity for SAAB they
were allowed to use the 4-cylinder engine in their own cars. What if Triumph could use this in the 1500’s
body, with the simplified mechanics from the Toledo? They could make a high class compact executive
car with bags of power, and lower production costs would leave room for profit, quite a
rarity for the newly formed British Leyland! It would also give them a replacement for
the sporty 6-cylinder version of the Herald – the Triumph Vitesse. The result was the 1971 Triumph Dolomite. A 1.9L rear wheel drive saloon capable of
over 100mph, but with a touch of class. Remind you of anything? Soon people were making the same comparisons
to BMW’s popular 2002. The handling hadn’t been hurt by Triumph’s
changes, and customers would eventually warm to it, after the introduction had been delayed
by a spate of strikes. But the best was yet to come. Triumph’s engineers knew four valves would
increase the amount of air they could get into the cylinder, and they devise a clever
single camshaft that would open all 16 valves. This was less complex than using 2 camshafts
that would also rob more power from the engine. On the bench their fancy new engine was getting
more than 150hp (112 kW), an amazing figure for a 1.9L engine in the early 1970s. But getting this sort of power reliably was
a challenge, meaning the provisional name of the “Dolomite 135” had to be scrapped. It launched as the Triumph Dolomite Sprint
in 1973, producing “just” 127hp (95 kW). But that was enough to give it a 115mph (185
km/h) top speed with an 8.5 second 0-60 time. This allowed it to easily compete with local
rivals such as Ford’s RS1600, and foreign challengers such as the Alfa Romeo Alfetta,
Fiat’s 124 Coupe and of course BMW’s 2002. But where the BMW was £2,400 ($3,200 USD,
€2,700, $4,200 AUD), the Dolomite Sprint was just £1,800 ($2,400 USD, €2,000, $3,100
AUD). The Sprint laid claim to being the first mass-production
car with a 16-valve engine, and the first British production car to have alloy wheels
as standard. Over time it became common for dealerships
to offer tuning packages that got even more power out of this exceptional engine. On the flip side it would also be known for
being unreliable, especially with some of the British Leyland build quality issues in
the mid to late 1970s. The Sprint would go racing in the British
Saloon Car Championships, winning the 1974 manufacturers trophy and the Driver’s championship
the following year. But all wasn’t well with parent British
Leyland. They were lumbering towards bankruptcy in
1975, and what little money they had was being diverted towards Rover and replacing its mass
market cars. Triumph’s engineering team was folded into
the Rover effort, the larger Triumph 2000 was hung out to dry, as was the unpopular
Stag. That made it hard to draw punters into the
Triumph showrooms when there wasn’t much new on offer. But at least British Leyland could clean up
their disparate Triumph line-up. They were still selling the 1500, updated
as the rear wheel drive 1500TC, the slightly smaller Toledo, and the Dolomite. That made for a confusing line-up, at least
as far as naming went. From 1976 all cars were called the Dolomite,
with the number denoting the engine size, except for the sporty Sprint. This meant the end to the shorter Toledo body,
with all cars using the Dolomite shape from now on. And of course, all were now rear wheel drive! The “HL” models retained the luxury features
the Dolomite was known for, with more basic models for Toledo customers. Triumph and Rover had been merged into the
Specialist Division and had been working on a Dolomite replacement since 1972, codenamed
SD2. SD1 would be launched as the Rover 3500, and
the SD2 would be its smaller sibling, like the Triumph 1300 had been to the 2000. One proposal, again styled by Michelotti would
be a reskin of the existing Dolomite. It took styling cues from its competition,
such as the Fiat 132, and featured a BMW-esque Hofmeister kink on the rear pillar. Pininfarina offered a 5-door proposal, and
British Leyland’s own designers created a mini-SD1. In the end the in-house design would win out
and work began fleshing it out. Triumph’s engineers had been working on
an inline 6-cylinder engine that would eventually appear on the SD1, and initially considered
it for the SD2, but the success of the Dolomite Sprint engine, and fuel economy pressures
from the 1973 oil crisis likely made them reconsider that plan. Fuel injection would add additional potency
to this engine – something SAAB would do with their version of the engine. The front of the SD2 would come from Triumph’s
own TR7, but the interior was heavily influenced by the SD1. Work continued, but British Leyland’s bankruptcy
in 1975 ended all hopes to get the car into production, and effectively ended any hopes
for the Triumph brand. It was a shame British Leyland overlooked
the more upmarket Triumph name to focus on the mass market Austin and Morris brands. As the 80s turned into the 90s the company
would switch tactics and use the upmarket Rover brand to bring some cache to their cars,
but slowly devaluing the brand in the process. Maybe it was a good thing they didn’t use
the Triumph name after all! A couple of other low volume cars were produced
using the Dolomite chassis. The Robin Hood S7 kit car used the Dolomite
as a donor, and the Panther Rio Rolls-Royce wannabe used the Dolomite as a starting point. Dolomites continued to be sold until 1980,
and in the late 70s Toledo kits were even sent to New Zealand for assembly. A special edition Dolomite 1500SE appeared
in 1979, essentially a 1500 with a Sprint front spoiler, special wheels, and grey seats. But by now the almost 10 year old style was
looking out of date, and with the closure of the Canley factory production ended. Half a million cars had been produced over
15 years. The Dolomite’s successor, the 1981 Triumph
Acclaim wouldn’t be designed by British Leyland at all, but by Honda. It would eventually be rebadged as the Rover
200, creating a compact luxury saloon of sorts to complement the larger Rover 800. But it was hardly something to rival BMW’s
compact luxury car, the 3-series, being based on the Honda Civic, and it would take a long
time until it was as sporty as the Dolomite Sprint. The Triumph 1300, Toledo and Dolomite spanned
the hopeful early 1960s when money to create new cars was plentiful, to the bad old days
of late 1970s British Leyland where the company was struggling for survival and labour relations
dogged its every step. But what Triumph created, although imperfect
in the 1960s, turned into maybe Triumph finest hour, turning heads and exciting drivers with
a potent 16-valve luxury sports saloon. A big thank you to all my Patrons for supporting
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