After tempting this Jabbeke speed record TR2 out of a collection, the restorers set to work on several boxes of bits
Discovered in bits in a Triumph horde, this prototype speedrecord TR2 turned into a restoration project of fascinating historical revelations – as well as an extremely complex job
‘We tried to save every inch of the original car. I thought we’d get nothing back after shotblasting. Surprisingly, It came back in far better condition than I was anticipating.’ Glen Hewitt
Were this car not to have succeeded there would have been no Triumph TRS – it’s that important,’ says Glen Hewitt of his TR2 prototype. ‘And yet back in the Seventies, shortly after being officially scrapped, the body was cut apart with a cold chisel to get it into the back of a van,’ continues the founder of Oxfordshire-based marque specialist Protek Engineering and dedicated Triumph enthusiast. ‘It was presumed lost for ever.’
As well as service and restoration, Protek builds TR3S Le Mans replicas, which need an unusual rear apron panel, six inches longer than standard. And that’s why the Jabbeke TR2 turned up. A few years ago, desperate for this part, Hewitt rang everyone he knew in the Triumph world, including a London-based collector. He had the apron panel, but he wouldn’t sell it. However, a month later he changed his mind.
‘He invited me round for a cup of tea, and I saw a box file on a shelf with a label reading “MVC 575” – the most famous TR2 numberplate in Triumph history, belonging to the Jabbeke Highway 125mph 1953 speed record car,’ says Hewitt. ‘Did he have the car? Yes he did. Would he sell it? I made an offer and, surprisingly, he accepted. I went home and talked to my wife about it, while wondering how to start the restoration.
‘I knew it would be a wreck. According to records it was scrapped, so at the very least it would have been dismantled, and I had no idea what this collector actually had – I’d gone into the whole thing blind!’ he admits. ‘But I’d made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.’
When the collector opened the garage door, Hewitt saw the bulkhead and said ‘Aha!’ Some parts were in good condition, including the bonnet with its little pins in the front corners to stop it coming off at high speed, its rolled edges and beading. He also saw the unusual indentations in the engine bay, and the chromed ID plaque reading ‘Triumph Sports 20TS SP713 Speed Model’. There were boxes of bits strewn all over the place, but this was definitely it – the car that put Triumph sports cars on the map.
Having failed to buy Morgan and short of cash, Triumph built its own sports car prototypes, but needed to break production-class speed records in order to get noticed. Test driver Ken Richardson managed to take Stirling Moss and Sheila van Damm’s speed records away, eclipsing the Sunbeam Alpine as the fastest small sports car, and in doing so took the TR2 from prototype to desirable production car in the space of just eight weeks. Richardson fitted a metal tonneau, took the windscreen off and recorded a mean of two runs, in this ‘speed trim’ and with overdrive, at 125mph. After that, everyone wanted a TR2 and Triumph couldn’t build enough of them.
Bodywork
‘When Triumph made this car, the bodywork was shaped around wooden formers, then things were screwed to it,’ Hewitt explains. ‘Much of the wood had gone rotten, which promotes rot in the surrounding metal too.’ Normal production TR2S don’t have any wood in their structure except the dashboard hoop. Because of this car’s ‘speed trim’, its windscreen mounts are unique, and the rotten wood that needed to be removed was tinder-dry. ‘It caught fire as we cut it out,’ Hewitt recalls. ‘We kept having to stop to pour water on it, but it all came away in the end. We made a replacement in steel with captive screws set in it – I didn’t want to put more wood into the structure and start the rotting process all over again. ‘We tried to save every remaining square inch of the original car. I didn’t want to end up essentially building a replica. We sent the rest of the structure off to be shot blasted, and I honestly thought we’d get nothing back. To my surprise it returned in far better condition than I was anticipating – although every single remaining piece of the puzzle fitted on the flatbed of my pick-up truck.’
The bulkhead was like lacework – the reconstruction would be like knitting fog but at least it was repairable. Crucially, the strengthening plates on the A-posts had survived. The bulkhead on a TR2 is the main structural focus of the car and the first job was to get some strength back into it. The Protek team kept as much metal as possible, welded up the splits, and added new steel at the bottom of the footwells.
‘We kept the whole inner wing structure, but the doors were a nightmare. The originals weren’t there any more, having been replaced with modified post1954 TR2 “short doors” at some point, and the A-posts and hinges were totally different from production TR2S. So we had to make our own doors,’ says Hewitt.
The back end was all present and in better condition than the front, but its construction was totally different from a production TR, with a different profile to the channelling around the boot and the panels all either riveted together or screwed to a wooden frame.
It was while inspecting the shot blasted remains that Hewitt made a groundbreaking realisation. ‘Looking at the rear structure of the car, and the rivets around the gearbox tunnel, we believe it began life as the long-lost TR1 motor-show prototype,’ he says. ‘The controversial original back end was cut off, and the more familiar bodywork was created in the manner of a coachbuilt one-off. Triumph couldn’t afford to throw a good car away. Also, one of the fuel tank panels had “Brussels Show Job” chalked on it.
‘Had it been any other TR I’ve no doubt it would have been scrapped. Crucially, the core of the car had survived, and with it the essence of MVC 575. After making this discovery, the restoration became a real honour.’ It took a lot of work to save the unique spare wheel pan, cutting out all the localised rust. Sadly the rear apron was unusably rotten, but thankfully it was the same as a very early TR2’S, with the spare wheel hatch much smaller than later cars’ to accommodate a steel wheel rather than a wire one with a spinner. In reconstructing the boot Protek had to keep the retaining clips in their wonky asymmetric locations.
‘The rear-wheel spats were taken off and thrown away, possibly at the same time as the tonneau cover, we think to accommodate aftermarket wire wheels,’ says Hewitt. ‘We found a pair of original Stanpart spats, which were covered in light surface rust, but were crucial to the car’s aerodynamics. The rear stone guards had to be recessed into the wings; normally on TR2S they stand proud to clear the spats. The spats may have had seals originally too, but in order to fit those we would have had to make a new set, which would have cost £2000.
‘When we fitted the new rear wings, we realised they were two inches too short and the spats didn’t fit. We ended up having to weld new metal in to make the wings reach the doors. The wings came from Moss, who helped us a lot with this project, but these things always need work. Not usually this much, mind!’
The aluminium tonneau was made by Francesco d’accorso, just down the road from Protek Engineering in South Stoke. It was a £4000 English Wheel process and the panel had to be recreated using period photos as a guide. Francesco made scale drawings, and had to deliberately make the driver’s aperture too small and put the rivets in the ‘wrong’ place, because that’s how it was when new. He made the front undertray too.
Engine
‘The engine was knackered,’ sighs Hewitt. ‘We rebuilt it with a new crankshaft, at 1991cc on a low-port cylinder head, as standard. To be eligible for the speed record it would have had to have been a standard production unit, so we didn’t want to cheat. I suppose we’ll find out when we give it a test run whether Triumph was cheating or not…
‘Back then there was no standard engine – this was the prototype. The standard specification is what resulted from the Jabbeke Run. The engine, gearbox and rear axle all went into the production TR2, so this aspect was relatively straightforward. The same goes for the suspension – it was covered in rot, but it was all cast iron so it was easily recovered.’
Brightwork and wheels
The tail-light units were new-old-stock Lucas early TR2 units, but Protek had to source the rear reflectors separately from Belgium. Rather than the
‘We discovered that the original car was painted Ice Blue rather than Old English White. You just can’t get Triumph Ice Blue any more. The formula no longer exists.’ Chris Soden
production reflectors, which don’t feature on early promotional artwork, this car wore aftermarket ones to comply with Belgian regulations, probably bought from an accessories shop. The front grille wasn’t a standard TR2 item, so one was made from a stainless steel mesh as per the original. The car uses genuine Lucas Tripod headlights, and Standard wheels on crossply tyres, which is what would have been in the Triumph parts-bin at the time. ‘Most TR2 owners these days fit radials, but we sourced these via Longstone,’ says Hewitt. ‘I also kept the original numberplates and bought reproductions from Ace. The originals are too illegible to be road-legal but restoring them felt wrong somehow. They hang over the door of my office now.’
Interior
Plenty of the original interior differs from the standard TR2, including wooden door cappings that sit at a 45-degree angle by the door jambs. They were warped and Protek could only re-use one piece, remaking the rest out of MDF. A new wiring loom was ordered from Moss because someone had thrown the original away when it was stripped down. The dash instruments and switches responded well to a clean-up.
‘The rest of the interior was kept deliberately basic, even at the time,’ Hewitt explains. ‘In the name of light weight and aerodynamics it didn’t have any floor mats and Richardson drove it sat on a cushion with his neck resting on the metal edge of the tonneau. The consequences of having an accident, especially at 125mph, are too awful to contemplate.’
Chassis
Because it doesn’t need to accommodate a spare wire wheel like a normal TR2, the chassis has a straight rear crossmember. This was in good condition compared with the rest of the car thanks to an accident on ice in 1968, which damaged the chassis. Rubery Owen repaired it and treated it to some anti-corrosion measures at the same time. ‘The repairs were patchy and rough by modern standards, but they probably saved us a lot of work and time,’ says Hewitt.
Paint
Getting an original-style paint finish was the task of Hewitt’s business partner Chris Soden. Protek gave it a base coat, polished it up and looked into the exact colour needed. Old English White was assumed, but the chance discovery of a colour film of the Jabbeke Run revealed the car to be Triumph Ice Blue. ‘We have a customer who owns an original Ice Blue TR2, and he told us you just can’t get the paint any more – the formula no longer exists, and it was only an option on the TR2 for the first six months of production,’ says Soden. ‘In the end, we had to resort to colour-chip matching, which led to a Citroën shade called Jade Vert. I didn’t like having to do this, but the results speak for themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to respray it again in a year’s time, though, as it suffers from chassis flex and that cracks the paint.’
Conclusion
The build took about 1000 hours in total. Hewitt says he didn’t log the exact hours or money spent but got into a routine of coming in early, doing an hour before work, then three or four hours afterwards. Both he and Soden would work on it on Fridays.
‘It was the hardest car we’d ever built, bar none,’ says Hewitt. ‘We couldn’t have done it without Mosseurope’s help. Once we’ve displayed at the Moss headquarters, what I’d most like to do is take it back to Jabbeke. I’m not sure I’d attempt 125mph, though!’