This article discusses the famous, or possibly, infamous engine – the Triumph V8. During the 1960s, Triumph decided to build a ragtop based on the 2000 saloon. The original plan was to use the 2 and 2.5 litre engines that were available in the Triumph parts bin, however as development continued and the car morphed from being a convertible saloon into an open grand tourer - … [Read more...]
Autocars
Autocars was an Israeli company that was founded by Itzak Shubinsky, with the help of Reliant Cars from the UK. The company started by building kits of Reliant's three wheelers and then the Reliant Regent 4 wheeled van. The first “true” Autocars model was the Sussita – designed by Reliant and shipped from the UK in kit form with a 1 litre Ford engine originally found in the … [Read more...]
Disc Brakes
A little while ago I wrote about drum brakes and it reminded me of the Le Mans winning Jaguars of the 1950s. One of the advantages the Jags had over their American, German and Italian rivals was their use of disc brakes. The other cars mostly still used drum brakes that were inferior in their ability to slow a car down. Thus the Jags could brake much later than the other cars … [Read more...]
Open Top Cars
What is fascinating about the car industry is the number of names used for the same item - and often it comes down to history with Europe and the US adopting different names at different times. The convertible is such a beast - it has so many different names, some driven by marketing and others by other long forgotten reasons. The simplest of the names, a convertible … [Read more...]
Triumph Cars
The Triumph name has been around for over a century and today it is only seen on motorbikes; however they have produced bicycles and cars, notably a range of sports cars. Triumph was originally founded in 1886 in Coventry by Siegfried Bettmann who had emigrated from Germany two years earlier and had set up an importation company bringing in bicycles and other items from … [Read more...]
