November 7, 2024
From the archive: on this present day in 1969

Triumph didn’t dangle again in its race to give a boost to its flagship, upgrading the 2000 to a Mk2 only a yr after giving it the TR6 sports activities automobile’s engine to create the two.5 PI. 

The Coventry company stretched the 2000 through some 22cm and made the cabin but plusher, expanding weight through round 50kg however now not resultantly denting efficiency, as a result of Michelotti’s new design created much less aerodynamic drag. 

The tasteful curved wood fascia, leather-rimmed sports activities wheel and multi-purpose levers “deserved the easiest reward”. 

We weren’t willing at the softer suspension, which borderered on sloppy, however we preferred enormously the brand new possibility of energy guidance, even though it lowered the texture a bit of. 

At about £1800 (£23,895 as of late), the two.5 PI was once fairly pricier than the carburetted 2000, however then its 2.5-litre instantly six produced virtually 50% extra energy than the two.0-litre one (132bhp over 90bhp). 

“At that worth, it’s nonetheless excellent price, possessing an extraordinary quantity of refinement, luxurious and really brisk efficiency. It’s very fulfilling, status up neatly towards Ecu festival for high quality, refinement and potency up to look.” 

Unfortunately, it will be the remaining large Triumph, the Rover SD1 being the flagship of a extra consolidated British Leyland from 1976.

The toy Ford GT40 and different motoring-related Christmas gifts

This Christmas, kids and adults alike will most commonly have confidently put eyewideningly pricey and complex electronics on their Santa wishlists. Existence simply was once such a lot more effective, as evidenced through our 1969 present information. 

The system that introduced the Autocar place of job to a standstill? No longer a digitally modelled Ford GT40 that you must race on completely recreated tracks towards other folks from everywhere the sector in actual time, however a battery-operated style of a Ford GT40 into which you must feed playing cards to make it pressure itself via a chain of little cones. This Mettoy toy will have to had been mind-blowing again then.