Whaddayaknow
Our Top 25 Muscle Cars on Dirt feature in issue #99 featured an eclectic bunch of traditional and non-traditional muscle cars. One car that de nitely fell into the latter category but which we couldn’t quite squeeze into our list was the crowd-pleasing and rapid Triumph TR7 V8 built-up by Colin Bond in the early 1980s. Let’s call it #26!
Bond’s TR7 V8 was, on paper, an ideal rally weapon that promised a lot in the gifted hands of a multiple Australian Rally Champion. Yet it delivered little in the few events that it contested.
While researching the Alfa GTV6 feature that also ran in #99, we couldn’t resist asking Bond and his long-time mechanic John Gray, who built up the Triumph, how the project evolved and what became of this distinctive Anglo-Australian rally muscle car.
“We started out with two wrecked TR7s from the (1981) Triumph Pro Car Series,” recalls Gray today. “I believe these were the Dick Johnson and Ian Geoghegan car that got ipped. Steve Masterton’s panelbeater cut and shut both cars. I fabricated the front subframe with Ford Escort struts, Capri arms and sway bars and Escort rear end.”
Colin Bond remembers that the plans for the wedgy Triumph TR7 were initially very different.
“I had built it up for my wife Robyn as a registered road car (it retained PRO-706 plates),” Bond explains, “but she got pregnant so we changed direction. Leyland had shut up shop and we were able to get a P76 V8 (4.4-litre) motor for $500 and a gearbox as well. We still had a lot of stuff lying around from the factory Ford Escort rally program. John Gray and I spent day and night getting it ready for the 1982 2GO Gosford Rally. It was more like an Escort than a TR7 in the end!”
As well as using gravel-proven Escort rally suspension, Bond was able to buy lots of goodies from John McCormack’s Leyland Repco F5000 program – like Repco crank and pistons. Gray fabricated an inlet manifold to suit a quartet of Weber DCOE 45 sidedraft carburettors. The engine eventually made a more than adequate 480 horsepower.
Finished at 2:30am the night before the high pro le 2GO Gosford Rally, the unsorted TR7 V8 in the hands of Bond and navigator John DawsonDamer did well to nish sixth outright - and in a brilliant display even won the Jilliby Park circuit section, setting a new record. Subsequent results disappointed, however, the biggest problem being that the small team didn’t really have the time to prepare or rally the beast. The car ended up in a corner of the Old Man Emu workshop at Silverwater, while its star driver concentrated on off-road and production-car racing where he was able to make a living. With the TR7 he was footing the bills.
In 1984 the TR7 V8 was sold to Mike Bell, an organiser of the 2GO Gosford Rally, who leased it out to British rally star Malcolm Wilson. The spectacular Wilson easily led the rally until it dropped onto seven cylinders. A loose tappet adjuster caused a pushrod to jump out. At the time, however, owner Bell feared the engine had lost oil pressure and sold the car cheaply to a grade-four rally driver from Campbelltown. According to Gray, the Triumph was too much car for the rally novice, who crashed it twice in quick succession.
What happened to the Triumph TR7 V8 after that is a bit of a mystery. Gray heard that the alloy Leyland V8 engine ended up in a speedboat. Bond had a guy calling him saying he has the car but on further prodding believes it not to be the case. Can any of our readers tell us more?