TR2/3/3A "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

[toysrrus]

"PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

Hi Folks;

I`ve been watching quite a few TR3s and I noticed something:

Some of the cars have the "TRIUMPH" lettering across the Front Apron & Some Don`t:

At what point did the Lettering begin to appear & I suspect had to continue right thru the TR3B: There were No exceptions to the rule; Were there?

Thanx in advance for Your advice;

Regards, Russ /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/confused.gif

 

[Don Elliott]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

The TR2 and TR3 had no big lettering across the front. The name Triumph was inside the bottom of the badge on the front apron or valance - like on the red TR3 attached. Then the US Sales people asked Coventry to make the name more visible because the general public couldn't read the name if they were more than a few feet from the front of the car. So with the introduction of the wide grilled TR3 (later called the TR3A by it's owners), the name Triumph appeared across the apron.

The early TR3As - like my black one attached - had grooved letters. Later TR3As - like the green one I finished in 2006 - and some TR3Bs had smooth letters. I say some TR3Bs, because, as the story goes, the factory ran out of letters and so some TR3Bs came to North America without any lettering across the apron.

 

[TR3driver]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/iagree.gif However, TS39781LO is an aberration; a TR3A that has apparently never had letters on the front. There are no signs of holes, it's solid sheet metal where the holes should be.

Best guess, the front apron had been replaced some time before I got the car. Since the ribbed and smooth letters had different mounting pegs, factory replacement aprons came without the holes (so I'm told). There were also signs of accident damage on the inner fenders, but not on the outer fenders or front apron.

 

[Geo Hahn]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

Nice examples of the lettering possibilities. Since Don's pics also show 3 of the badge styles used I'll add a photo of the fourth flavour -- the 3-color version used for a limited time in mid-59:

No idea why they tried this and the discarded it -- perhaps it was more expensive to produce with the additional color (black). At times Standard would seem to change something just to save 20p as they could be very price conscious.

While looking at those photos I am reminded you will also encounter 2 types of grilles. For many years the only repros available had thicker cross pieces and hence slighly smaller openings. I believe repros of the original dimensions are now available. Can't quite tell from Don's photos... perhaps his black one has a grille with the smaller openings?

Here's a before & after shot of mine from when I replaced the repro grille with an original. Easiest to spot the difference if you look at the openings around the parking lamp:

Of course the grille should be flat (like in Don's photos) not curved in like mine. Perhaps my front apron got tweaked somewhere in its past because the grille won't fit unless it bows in slightly.

That's enough for now -- one could talk all day about the subtle differences you are likely to encounter in your TR3 search.

 

[Don Elliott]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

George - At VTR a few weeks ago, I saw a front badge with the black bottom. I had never seen one before.

Yes my grille has the smaller openings. I bought it back in 1987. It's been on since 1990 and has 97,000 miles on it now.

To get my grille to fit (also on the green one) so it would be flat, we used a very short hydraulic jack and a piece of 3" by 3" pine about 2 feet long where we band-sawed the curved contour of the top of the grille opening. Then we jacked up the top curve on the apron. We did this before it was painted.

I still have my original grille but it really got mangled in the over-night Echo Rally on the Rouge River road (gravel and rocky) back in 1963, when I took off at the top of a hill only to find the road had curved towards the right. A fence post saved me from crashing down about 15 feet into the rocky raging white water river about 3 AM.

 

[Geo Hahn]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

Don -- you definitely know how to enjoy your TR.

 

[Andrew Mace]

Re: "PUZZLING TR3 QUESTION"? Please Help:

The early TR3As - like my black one attached - had grooved letters. Later TR3As - like the green one I finished in 2006 - and some TR3Bs had smooth letters. I say some TR3Bs, because, as the story goes, the factory ran out of letters and so some TR3Bs came to North America without any lettering across the apron.

I have my own theory on this...and it is ONLY a theory based on some original cars. I suspect that the change to the smooth letters did come fairly late in TR3A production. My theory is that it may have coincided with a new set of tools for stamping the front end.

My rationale here is that much of the body had been retooled at TS60001, as the original dies were about worn out. But the wide-mouth apron was much newer and was NOT retooled at that time. Some folks have noted that very late original aprons are indeed of a slightly different profile from the top of the grille back to the leading edge of the bonnet; as I recall, it's a bit flatter just above the grille opening. Meanwhile, the 3A would've been the only model using the old ribbed letters, while many thousands of Heralds had already been built with the newer smooth letters front and rear. So it only would've made sense to "rationalize" those across all the models being built.

Certainly the new apron could've been phased in in such a way that occasional older aprons (and thus their ribbed letters) still made their way onto new cars on the assembly line, and it could also have been true even with the 3B. Remember, the bottom pertty much fell out on 3A sales in 1960-61. So when the US dealers and distributors came up with the idea of continuing the line a bit longer at a price lower than the new TR4, Triumph -- with enough bits lying about to easily build a few thousand more -- were only too happy to oblige.

As for the complete absence of letters on "original" TR3As or TR3Bs, I'm yet to be convinced, but it's certainly possible. As Randall pointed out, later replacement wide-mouth aprons appear to have been made with no holes at all. That was also the case for many, many years with the Tasker Metal Products replacement apron, sold for so long by JC Whitney and others.

Again, all conjecture; use this information at your own risk. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif