TS2

The name

“TS” stood for Triumph Sports. TS1 was left-hand drive, built for Sir John Black’s export ambitions in America; TS2 was right-hand drive, and the two were completed on the same day. Both survive. TS1 lives in the United States, and the pair were reunited in the early 2000s for the first time in half a century.

She has never picked up a nickname. The commission number simply became the name, and TR literature has referred to her as “she” for decades.

What makes her early

TS2 is from the “long-door” generation, where the doors run right down almost to the sill — lovely to look at, less convenient beside a high kerb. She carries the early aluminium panels, before Triumph switched to steel at around TS550. Her body is considerably more hand-made than later production cars, which is why very early TR2s differ from one another in surprisingly small ways.

She also carries a detail the factory changed almost immediately: a filler cap on the thermostat housing, sitting below the top of the radiator. Even Standard-Triumph were still learning.

A working ambassador

The philosophy behind TS2 is that she should be driven and enjoyed rather than roped off. TR Register members can apply to use her where doing so promotes the marque or the club, and the TS2 Trust holds her on the membership’s behalf. She keeps needing work for the best possible reason — the club actually drives her.

The real risk to heritage isn’t movement. It’s irrelevance.

Seventy-three years of refusing to retire

1953

Completed 22 July at Banner Lane, alongside left-hand-drive twin TS1. Both white with Geranium leather. Travels via Sweden to Ireland and is shown at the Dublin Motor Show, then tours Standard-Triumph dealers as a demonstrator on trade plates.

1954

Bought by Dr Brendan O’Hara, a GP from Tullamore, who races, rallies and hill-climbs her — including the four-day Circuit of Ireland Rally, completed without mishap. Reportedly the first TR to enter the event.

Late 1950s

Lives for a time in Eaton Square, London, still wearing Irish plates and taxed by London County Council — at roughly twice what she cost to tax in Ireland. Later Irish owners go on campaigning her.

1960s

Becomes semi-derelict. She is, at this point, simply an ageing old sports car that nobody is spending money on.

1970s

Rescued by Keith Read and brought back across the Irish Sea. He begins a rebuild, cannot complete it, and generously donates her for the benefit of the TR Register.

2001

Restoration completed by the Register in time for the NEC Classic Motor Show — funded and carried out by members, with a £5,000 interest-free loan and a £1,000 grant from the TR Spares Development Fund.

2003

Around 200 TRs surround her at the Grand Prix de l’Âge d’Or in France for the TR2’s 50th anniversary. Reunited with TS1 in the early 2000s, for the first time since 1953.

2007

A group-to-group relay around Britain, passing through the hands of almost every TR Register local group.

2016

Paddy Hopkirk drives TS2 at the head of the Kop Hill Climb cavalcade, in front of more than 17,000 spectators.

2021

Voted Car of the Show at The Classic, Silverstone. Not bad for a car approaching seventy.

2022

The delayed 50th-anniversary Round Britain Relay sets off from Brooklands in June — some 9,500 miles, visiting all 53 local groups, with Classic Car Weekly along as media partner. Poses with a Vulcan bomber at Solway Aviation Museum on the way round.

2023

Seventieth birthday, on 23 July.

2026

Ten European countries with Evie and Andy, on Club Triumph’s Ten Countries Run.

TS2 is owned by the TR Register and held in trust for its membership. Evie and I are enormously grateful to the TS2 Trust for allowing us to borrow her, and to the many members whose money and hours put her back on the road in the first place.