Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Triumph was once touted as the shape of things to come. That was a long time ago, but we’ll now have to see if this TR8’s price has it coming or going.


There was some intrigue surrounding yesterday’s 2003 BMW 325Xi Touring. I don’t mean about its claim of being the only Dakar Yellow X-wagon in the world, I mean, I’m honestly too lazy to check. No, the puzzler was that the same car could be found in a number of ads all up and down the East Coast differentiated only by wheels and minor variations in price.

Was that all a scam? Maybe, but no matter as the car fell in a 53-percent Crack Pipe loss, and hence the point was mooted.


Chopping off her head may not have benefitted Anne Boylen in the looks department but it sure did improve the aesthetic qualities of the Triumph TR7. Originally introduced as a severely notched coupe with heavy B-pillars, the droptop version erased a myriad of visual sins and aligned the 7 with its convertible predecessors. Adding a V8 engine to the mix was only icing on the cake.

Sadly that icing was spread too thin and the entire Triumph brand went belly up in the early Eighties.


Now, we should note the specific Triumph about which we’re talking because there are several. There’s Triumph motorcycles which is a separate brand from the automaker Standard Triumph, and then there’s the Canadian rock band also called Triumph, whose only request was for you to Lay it on the Line.

Today’s 1980 Triumph TR8 comes from none of those. Well, it’s a descendant of Standard Triumph but by the Eighties the company had gone through a number of ownership changes and had left the Standard part of their name in the corporate dustbin. Today the rights to the Triumph car brand are owned by BMW.


This roarty TR8 could be owned by you. The car is Carnelian Red and has had a respray at some point in its life. It doesn’t look too bad in the pics and the seller describes it as stunning from five feet away. Laudably, the proper decals have been applied over the paint.


Mileage shows a meager 49,000 on the clock and the tires are claimed to come with decent tread. And yes, amazingly those handsome alloys are only 13-inches in diameter.

The interior looks to be in fine shape, and benefits from a pair of MX5 seats where the Triumph thrones once resided. Between those sits a billet shift knob for the LT77 five-speed gearbox, the only other nod to non-conformity here. The Triumph gearboxes are neither the most robust nor ubiquitous of transmissions so consider stockpiling parts while they’re still available.


Bolted to the gearbox is an aluminum 3.5-litre Rover V8. These engines were used in damn-near everything in England at one time or another, and started life in the Sixties as the BOP215 from GM. This one eschews the standard set of cross-ways Zenith Stromberg CD175s (or Bosch L-Jetronic if it was a California car) for a Holley 4BBL on an Offy intake. A lot of shiny bits have been added to the engine bay as well as a big MSD ignition set up. All in all it looks pretty tidy and well sorted under the hood.


Ah, but how would this TR8 look under your garage roof? These were fairly well unloved when they were new, and fewer than 2,800 were built in total. Today however, they have found a niche as a quirky but capable collectible. To collect this one, you’d need to come up with $8,999.

What do you think about that price for this car? Does $8,999 make you think about the shape of your bank account to come? Or, is that price a total wedge issue?


You decide!




Washington DC Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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