1972 Triumph TR6 RestoMod

This was a painstakingly done restoration of my fathers teenage dream car. Nothing was left untouched, and nothing was left stock. We wanted to put center stage the beautiful bodylines that started with the TR5 designed by Giovanni Michelotti. I feel he would approve of the liberties we took.

When my pops and I dragged this 1972 TR6 out of a barn 20 years ago, it wasn't fit for mice to live in. Although they did anyway. The tires were rotted and sunk into 5 inches of mud. The wood dash was stained with rat piss and warped. The radiator was swollen and the freeze plugs had blown out the side of the engine block. The front bumper was pushed out by a foot in the middle from where the last owner wrapped a chain around it to drag the car into a barn with a tractor, where it sat for the next decade, forsaken. We worked on restoring it off and on over the next 10 years, mainly replacing all the cancerous rust and getting her into some paint. The majority of the work was completed in the last 4 years after I lit a fire under his ass and said lets get this machine on the road. After removing 5 paint jobs, lots of metal work, highly involved engineering and systems integration, and meticulous component rebuilds by hand, we said finito.

Now this roadster sports over 200hp with a complete Lucas mechanical petrol injection system and intercooled Eaton 2.5liter blower from an SL Benz. My father had a prototype electronically stepped clutch mechanism for the blower drive pulley that he designed while working on a project for Mercedes (now you understand where the blower came from), so naturally we had to put the supercharger on a selector switch so we could run naturally aspirated or blown depending on the mood, cause why not. Oh yeah, we bolted a 5 speed Toyota Supra transmission up to it to handle all those extra ponies and keep the revs down while cruising. 10" wide Nitto tires complete with red lines wrap the 17" Rota rims, providing a modern level of performance while keeping the vintage look complete. To help stop all that forced inducted fuel injected monstrosity we fitted over-sized drilled and slotted rotors to the front rollers. We made a one off dual exhaust system with Flowmaster cans that when I hear, I just can't help think of the roar from a 60s GTB Ferrari. Sometimes I think he loves this thing more than me, and to be honest I wouldn’t blame him.

When you start really look at the car, you notice small touches that truly separate it from the sea of red British roadsters. The wrap around bumpers with massive over riders are gone in favor of some heavily modified low profile bump stops we pulled off an Austin Healy. The license plate light is an inverted Triumph Spitfire light, keeping as many English bits on the machine as we could.

The grille is another one off piece as well. Fabricated from scratch, it holds the factory TR6 emblem, while again, providing a modernized update. We also deleted the massive front turn signals to make an additional pair of air intakes, that just so happen to ram air directly into the twin intake filters. The original mounting points for the second gargantuan wrap around bumper now act as place holders for the new turn signals, sourced off a Sprite to once more keep with the theme of everything British.

If you look closely to the bottom right, you’ll see the intake has an electronically actuated butterfly valve that redirects fresh air from the first intake, through the charge piping into the intercooler for when we hit that boost button. Originally designed for a modern Corvette to reroute exhaust in performance mode, we felt this was a better use of the tech.

TRIUMPH

1972 Triumph TR6 RestoMod

This was a painstakingly done restoration of my fathers teenage dream car. Nothing was left untouched, and nothing was left stock. We wanted to put center stage the beautiful bodylines that started with the TR5 designed by Giovanni Michelotti. I feel he would approve of the liberties we took.