RICHARDSON’S RUN
Desperate for a sports car to sell to an eager public, but short of cash, Triumph turned to a legendary test-driver
Triumph’s TR sports cars seem like an immovable part of the classic motoring landscape nowadays and the marque’s image is still one of fundamental sportiness, so it’s hard to imagine a time when the firm genuinely didn’t know how to build a sports car and had to ask for help. However, this is precisely how MVC 575 came about.
Standard-triumph chairman Sir John Black wanted to take on MG with an affordable parts-bin roadster – and the 20TS prototype, which emerged from the Banner Lane experimental department in October 1952, was the result. It used a shortened Standard Eight chassis and the 2.0-litre Vanguard engine, and featured a strangely dumpy rear end with an exposed spare wheel and no boot.
Public response at the 1952 London Motor Show was muted. Black was disappointed, but was keen to stress the new car’s sporting credentials. Because Standard-triumph had supported BRM’S V16 Grand Prix project, Black asked EXERA and BRM test driver Ken Richardson – who had just been made redundant – to try out the 20TS.
‘It’s the most bloody awful car I’ve ever driven,’ was Richardson’s unflattering response. Chassis flex was pronounced and Richardson proclaimed it a ‘death trap’, but he agreed to develop the car into something capable of outperforming offerings from MG and Sunbeam.
Thoroughly reworked as the TR2, Richardson covertly took the new car to 114mph on the Coventry ring road. Now satisfied with its handling thanks to a new bespoke chassis, Richardson decided to demonstrate its abilities on the Jabbeke Highway in Belgium; the so-called ‘Flying Mile’, where Jaguar and Sunbeam had proven the top speeds of its cars in front of independent adjudicators and the motoring press.
On its first run the TR2 made 105mph but was found to be running on three cylinders. Speed trim fitted and spark plug lead re-attached, the mean of the following runs was clocked at 125mph, beating the 120mph set by Stirling Moss and Sheila van Damm in the Sunbeam Alpine two months earlier.
After the record run, Richardson ran MVC 575 as his own car while he headed up Triumph’s competitions department from 1954. In response to its closure in 1961 as part of Triumph’s incorporation by Leyland, Richardson destroyed the department’s paperwork, and with it proof of MVC 575’s identity. The 20TS was presumed lost for ever – until now.