By the beginning of the saloons, Triumph’s enduring TR 3 needed a facelift if the needed sales and interest were to be maintained. Triumph decided on a European look and went shopping for Italian styling. They ended up hiring Michelotti to re-skin the car in a more shapely body that also had to be both roomier and a little more comfortable than the TR3. Launched as the TR 4 in 1962 it retained all the rugged qualities of its predecessors. Chief among these were a torquey 2.2 liters four cylinder engine and a separate chassis. However, an all synocromesh box was an innovation. Complaints about the poor road holding and the bumpy ride were answered by the TR 4a of the 1965, which came with a new form of semi trailing arm rear suspension shared with the highly praised Triumph 2000 saloon. More power was the next obvious step, so Triumph fitted their new 2.5 liter straight six in the TR 5 of 1967. Injected and producing 150 bhp, this gave the TR a much smoother delivery and the potential for up to 120 mph.
This was a short lived variant however, and it was supplanted in 1969 by the TR 6, with new crisper, if less characterful-styling from the German firm of Karmann. Mechanically little changed, and the TR 6 continued to sell in large numbers, mostly to the North American market, until 1976 when it was no longer able to meet the increasingly strict challenge of the Federal safety requirements.
