MYTH BUSTER
Debunking the most common old wives’ tales
1 THERE WAS NO BOOTLID
The one fact that most people think they know is that there was no external boot lid – you had to fold down the rear seat to store luggage. Remarkably, this was marketed as an advantage – the load area was ‘dust and rain-sealed’. Neither the Eight of 1953 nor the Ten of 1954 had an opening boot as originally launched, but the Ten Super got one in 1956, and the Gold Star Eight variant followed suit in 1957.
2 THE SC ENGINE COPIED THE BMC A-SERIES UNIT
It’s often believed that Standard’s overhead-valve SC engine was a thinly-veiled copy of Austin’s A-series. The first two versions shared the same cylinder capacity (803cc and 948cc), sported the same bore and stroke and had similar architecture. However, the SC engine had its camshafts, pushrods, inlets and exhaust ports on opposite sides and it was deeper, and therefore heavier. It also had separate ports for each exhaust valve, while A-series engines had Siamesed exhaust ports for the two inner cylinders.
3 THEY WERE ALL BRANDED AS STANDARDS
Not quite. To cash in on the sporty Triumph TR line that was doing well in North America, Standard Ten Companion estates and later Pennants were sold as Triumph TR10s. It seems that some more basic saloons also made their way across the Atlantic, known just as Triumph 10s. There was a plan up until 1953 to call the models not Standards and not Triumphs, but Beavers. It’s probably just as well that this didn’t happen…