Situated within the same building as the service division, on the Birmingham Road, Coventry, the Standard Triumph Competition Department occupied roughly a third of the shop floor area. Under the stewardship of Ken Richardson, the Triumph Competition Department was a force to be reckoned with until the firm’s new owner, Leyland, took the decision to unceremoniously shut it down in 1961 despite eight years of relative success. The ‘bean counters’ won.

The rally cars, as Ken Richardson always maintained, were run as near to standard as possible and the cars, which were hand-built with soul, were reliable, and the drivers were stars – a special breed. It’s hard to image race and rally cars beign built in the corner of the same factory that produce road cars today and here lies the magic of classic competition cars. They were built with passion to demonstrate the very best of what an evolution of the road cars could provide. TRW 736 is now available for sale with Pendine in the Classic Driver Market.

TRW 736 is one of the three famous ‘TRW’ Works rally cars that were prepared and registered by Standard Triumph to contest in the 1957 European rally season. Whilst Ken Richardson championed the ability of a standard TR3, it didn’t stop the competition department from breathing on TRW 736 with special equipment options such as an overdrive gearbox that operated through 2nd,3rd and 4th gears and other purposeful rally tweaks to ensure TRW 736 could take on any challenge that Europes challenging roads could throw at it.

The first outing for TRW 736 was at the 1957 Tulip Rallye where the car, driven by John Waddington and William Cave took top team honours placing 1st in the GT class beating the legendary Paddy Hopkirk in fellow team car, TRW 737.

The car was then entered in the notoriously long, rough and fast Liege-Rome-Liege Rally where rallying tour de force Bernard Consten and Pichon achieved 3rd overall after a gruelling battle at the top of the leaderboard. This was the best ever result by a Works Triumph TR. The other two team cars finished 5th and 9th  overall which was enough to also clinch the Overall Team Award.

In the late 1960s the car was sold on by a local garage and as with many ex-Works triumphs, the car was presented as a used road car with no real note of its history. TRW 736 would remain as a road car until the 1980s when its rally career was finally realised.

It was John Sykes – owner of TR Bitz – who set about gathering together some of the correct, period items for the restoration, whilst it was the subsequent owner who would undertake an exacting three-year restoration to its original Works specification. This work was completed by TR Enterprises, and the aim was to build a safe and competitive car for modern historic events.

The car was completed in time for the 2012 Liege-Rome-Liege where it finished 2nd overall. Today, it is presented with an impressive history file, and represents one of the most well documented of the Works TRs. There is a wealth of correspondence from previous owners as well as the Works drivers. Also present is original documentation from the Liege – Rome – Liege and Tulip rallies and a wealth of period images. Furthermore, there are invoices on file showing recent expenditure with TR Enterprises.

This is a golden ticket to all the top road and race events around the world; indeed, TRW 736 has most recently completed the 2021 edition of the Mille Miglia and comes fully prepared for its next rally with current FIVA, FIA HTP Papers and Mille Miglia Registro card. This is rare opportunity to acquire an important, well sorted Works competition car with a well-documented and rich history.