TriumphTR6

The Last Triumph TR6

CF58328U, a carburetted car for America, built at Canley on 15 July 1976: the end of the TR6, and of the TRs built on a separate chassis. What is known of it, and what is not.

About the pictureA TR6 of the 1975–76 model years photographed in 2012, not CF58328U

A blue Triumph TR6 with black rubber bumper guards and the indicators below the bumper, on a sunny show lawn.
Stand-in Standing in for the car: a TR6 of the same final model years, with big rubber overriders (bumper guards) and the indicators below its raised bumper, at a British car show in Hudson, Quebec, in 2012.Bull-Doser, Public domain

On 15 July 1976 the works at Canley built CF58328U, and Rimmer's parts catalogue, which follows the factory's build records, lists it as the last production TR6.⁠1

The last car

Sources for The last TR6

Graham Robson (foreword), Triumph TR6 1969–1976 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.2 (source code TR600313)⁠1; Vintage Triumph Register, "TR6" (history, year-by-year changes, US production table, buyer's guide)⁠2; Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 2: TR5, TR250, and TR6", Ate Up With Motor, 7 Nov 2012⁠3; Moss Motoring, "Twenty-Five years of the TR6: A Nostalgic Profile", Oct 1994⁠4

The sources read say little else about it. No source read records its colour or its specification, and the car's record, below, follows it only as far as Severson's account and a line in Moss Motoring in 1994 take it: to Bob Tullius, who had raced Group 44's TR6s, and to his company.

What else ended

The TR6 had outlived its injected form by 17 months: CR6701, the last injected car, had been built on 7 February 1975, and the TR7, launched in America that January, had been on sale in Britain since 19 May 1976. American dealers were still delivering TR6s in their hundreds that June, and some of the last cars were not sold until 1977. No TR after CF58328U was built on a separate frame, the TR Register notes: the TR7 that replaced it was built without one, at Speke.⁠6​7​1​8​9​4​10​11

Where it has been

  1. 1976

    Built at Canley, the last TR6

    15 July 1976. A carburetted car of the 1976 model year. Rimmer's build records list CF58328U as the "Last ever production TR6 (built 15th Jul 76)"; the Vintage Triumph Register writes "Last TR6 built on 7/15/76, CF58328". The British Motor Museum's blog on the Canley factory shows a photograph of "the last Triumph TR6 ... made at Canley in 1976". It was the last of the separate-chassis TRs

    Graham Robson (foreword), Triumph TR6 1969–1976 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.2 (source code TR600313)⁠1; Vintage Triumph Register, "TR6" (history, year-by-year changes, US production table, buyer's guide)⁠2; British Motor Museum, "Factor us in: Standard Triumph factory at Canley"⁠12; Bruno Dwinger, "Geschichte, Typenkunde und Kaufberatung: British Leyland Triumph TR 6PI und TR 6 (Vergaser) – Die Karmann Autos", TR-Register Deutschland, c. 2010, 13 pp. (PDF)⁠7

  2. 1976

    Went to Bob Tullius

    Severson writes that "the last TR6 off the line went to Bob Tullius, marking the end of an era". No primary record of the sale was read

    Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 2: TR5, TR250, and TR6", Ate Up With Motor, 7 Nov 2012⁠3

  3. 1994

    Owned by Bob Tullius Racing

    October 1994. Moss Motoring wrote in October 1994 that the last TR6 "is currently owned by Bob Tullius Racing". Nothing later was found

    Moss Motoring, "Twenty-Five years of the TR6: A Nostalgic Profile", Oct 1994⁠4

Sources

Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  • Uncheckedencyclopaedias and enthusiast sites: cited beside a good source, named in the sentence, or marked Unchecked
  1. Graham Robson (foreword), Triumph TR6 1969–1976 Parts & Accessories Catalogue, Rimmer Bros, edn 2.2 (source code TR600313), p. 5, the last production TR6, built 15 July 1976; p. 5, Vehicle identification; p. 5; p. 5, CR6701. Reference
  2. Vintage Triumph Register, "TR6" (history, year-by-year changes, US production table, buyer's guide), Spotter's Guide, '76. Reference
  3. Aaron Severson, "Grandfather's Ax: The Many Evolutions of the Triumph TR4, Part 2: TR5, TR250, and TR6", Ate Up With Motor, 7 Nov 2012, TR in twilight; TR in twilight: the last TR6 to Bob Tullius. Reference
  4. Moss Motoring, "Twenty-Five years of the TR6: A Nostalgic Profile", Oct 1994, the last TR6 in 1994; cars sold well into the 1977 model year. Reference
  5. Wikipedia (EN), "Triumph TR6", 2026, 14 July, citing Knowles, and 20 July in the infobox. Unchecked
  6. TR Register, "Triumph TR6 Buyers Guide" (facts sheet), the last of the separate-chassis TRs. Reference
  7. Bruno Dwinger, "Geschichte, Typenkunde und Kaufberatung: British Leyland Triumph TR 6PI und TR 6 (Vergaser) – Die Karmann Autos", TR-Register Deutschland, c. 2010, 13 pp. (PDF), p. 1, the last TR with a separate frame; p. 2. Reference
  8. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, May–June 1976, May–Jun 1976, June 1976 deliveries. Primary
  9. Clive Richardson ("C.R."), "Triumph TR7: sports car or two-seater saloon?", Motor Sport, Jun 1976, p. 63, the TR7 on sale in Britain from 19 May 1976. Primary
  10. TR Register, "Buyer Beware: TR6" (2 pp. PDF leaflet), p. 2, the TR7 completely different. Reference
  11. Keith Adams, "The Cars: Triumph TR7/TR8 development story", AROnline, updated 8 Feb 2024, the TR7 built at Speke; launched in the USA, January 1975. Reference
  12. British Motor Museum, "Factor us in: Standard Triumph factory at Canley", The end of the factory. Reference