MY TIME WITH A TR6 WAS ALL BREAKDOWNS AND SMILES
My rental Triumph steamed and seethed at me. It was unhappy. For the second time in two days I had asked it to play nice and drive around through L.A. traffic, and for the second time in two days it had revolted. The crimson British sports car sat still on a bland residential side street doing its very best to empty its radiator onto the pavement.
It wasn’t always like this; there were happier moments.
We blasted down empty freeways at night, the straight-six singing through stainless headers while I let out a boyish whoop heard only by the semi trucks around me. We shared moments of nervous joy as I gripped the leather wheel tight in my hands and flew around on-ramps.
She was angry now. But I still loved her.
The Triumph TR6 was a sports car in the most classical sense. Faster than an MGB, cheaper than a Corvette, and devilishly handsome, the TR6 found many willing buyers during its production run from 1968 to 1976. They made more than 90,000 TR6S in all, a healthy number for a two-seat sportster back then. And of those 90,000, a full 80,000 found their way to North America. Hardly the stuff of cutting edge tech, it featured an engine designed in the 1950s and a chassis that can trace its roots back to 1961. The ergonomics were bad, even when new, and people just didn’t seem to care.
Owner Bruce Hearn certainly didn’t mind when he bought this car as a $500 mess 11 years ago. Since then, he’s gone through (or had someone else go through) every single bolt on the car, and its carmine red paint shines beautifully in any light. The 2.5-litre straight-six has been treated to a lumpity-bump performance camshaft, the transmission uses a competition clutch, and the exhaust is a full-custom tubular stainless setup with four exhaust tips. It’s quite the machine.
And how did I come to be piloting such a machine? I booked it as a rental through the new Hagerty Driveshare program. Think of it as Airbnb for interesting cars, where you can rent out privately owned cars of interest for moderate costs.
“It’s probably not a big deal,” said Hearn as we stared at a growing puddle of coolant the day before. Hearn said he drives the car about 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) annually and it had never given him trouble, but like all classic cars, it waited until the least opportune moment to fail. The coolant seemed to be dripping from a bad heater-hose connection at the firewall. Alarmed, I offered to cancel the rental, but Hearn insisted he was confident it was nothing more than a leaky British fitting and sent me off with a small plastic cup in the footwell to catch the drips.
It wasn’t what I would call an easy car to drive. The wheel crowds the driver so much I could turn it with my elbows. The clutch, brake, and gas pedals all seem to be stacked on top of each other and each had very long, heavy throws. The aftermarket cam had moved power up the curve to the redline and pulling away from a stop was a real exercise of foot dexterity.
A stomp of the gas sent the butterflies of two Stromberg carbs flying open and a rush of fuel and noise propelled me along in the night. Each shift of the four-speed required firm and deliberate action, like pulling an axe from a stump. It is mechanical and delightful. It’s a car you want to drive.
But it wasn’t meant to be. The 110 freeway isn’t known for free-flowing traffic and sure enough, I found a jam just two miles from my hotel. The Triumph was getting hot and bothered by the lack of airflow through its radiator and before the temp needle could make its angry journey to the end of the dial, it shut off completely.
But nothing had mechanically failed on the car, and the owner kindly offered me a “Round 2” with the car the next day. I accepted and made plans for a quick jaunt to the beach.
It made the 20-mile trek without issue and when parked, promptly dumped a half-gallon of coolant over the sandy pavement of Seal Beach parking lot. It is old and British after all. After a brief photo shoot, it was time to make the same trip back to base.
This time it was a complete meltdown. The plastic cup was still in the footwell. We needed a larger cup. Within a mile and half, the drip had turned into a shower nozzle, spraying my passenger’s feet with superheated coolant. The drive was done.
Over the course of my two-day rental I covered just 43 miles and required two flatbed tows. And yet, I’d happily do it again.
A nearly 50-year-old car will never be a replacement for a real rental car. But even if it can’t get you where you want to go, it’ll give you a smile and a story to tell at the bar for years to come. And as I sat by the side of the road, like so many TR6 owners have done before me, I understood why it was all worth it. Because it’s fun. Driving.ca