Some Standard myths revisited
It was brave of Richard Gunn to attempt to debunk some of the myths about the Standard Eight and Ten range ( CCW, 15 January), especially the complex issue of the opening boot, where he was, I’m afraid, sadly mistaken.
He is correct about the Eight in that when launched in 1953 it had no bootlid and nor did the 8 DeLuxe launched with wind-up windows in 1954. As Richard also correctly says, only the Gold Star Eight variant launched in April 1957 has a bootlid. My Eight is a Gold Star and I was once asked if I had cut the bootlid out myself!
There was only one Ten model built without an opening boot – the Family Ten, which was built from 1955 to 1956 using the Eight DeLuxe bodyshell with a
Ten engine.
Turning to Richard’s second myth as to the Standard SC (small car) engine being a copy of the BMC A-series – he is correct that it was not. However there were two versions of each SC 803cc and 948cc engines – the original version and the much uprated Gold Star engines.
Another myth that Richard could have debunked is that the gold-painted Gold Star engines are reconditioned like Gold Seal BMC engines. They were actually built like that from new, supposedly using gold paint left over after Standard stopped building Ferguson Grey Gold tractors; they became grey and red after Massey Harris merged with Ferguson. Finally, although the Standard Ten sold in North America was known as the TR10, the brochure shows it as the Triumph Sedan and the badge as the Triumph Ten.
This was essentially a post-1957 Ten Gold Star with two-tone paint and a chrome strip that was on the earlier Super Ten, but not on monotone British Gold Star models. The Pennant was sold as the Triumph Pennant, as far as I’m aware, and I have seen a badge from such a car.
I include a picture of the original Eight from a 1954 USA brochure showing it being sold not as a Beaver, but as a Vanguard Cadet alongside the Vanguard Phase Two. ❚