CLASSIC RIVALS
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TECH SPEC Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ David Osborne Contributor his Classic Rivals is arguably harder to call than others because both the Triumph Stag and the Reliant Scimitar GTC have much in common – literally, where the hood frame is concerned. Both were four-seater British convertibles, with the Scimitar picking up in 1980 where the Stag had left off almost three years earlier. Their design pedigrees are impeccable: in this case, Michelotti went against Ogle, although neither car was a pure breed. The Stag was a shortened 2000/2500 (albeit with a bespoke engine), while the Scimitar was a parts bin special which brought tried and tested components together. Triumph and Reliant were never the most flushed with cash either, which stifled future development of their models; nor could they sell enough cars to recoup earlier investment, as markets were wary of reliability issues (Stag) or simply uninterested at the asking price
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TRIUMPH STAG
(Scimitar GTC). It would have been fascinating to see these cars compete against another when new; but with the benefit of more than 40 years’ hindsight, the Reliant was late to a party it was throwing for itself.
TRIUMPH STAG The Stag is certainly more sinned against than sinning. Much of its potential was squandered by woeful assembly; and with its reputation destroyed, it took years of work by associated clubs to undo the damage. Any contest considering its worth as a classic tourer/GT must be aware of this discrimination. Not that the Stag was lacking in looks: 2000/2500-based it may have been, but Michelotti made the most of the raw material. Arguably, it was its engine that did much for all the ‘Triumph Snag’ jibes, despite vindication coming years later in the form of a For The Love of Cars episode which proved its cooling system was up to scratch. No, it was manufacturing that let the Stag down: undersized main bearings, poor cylinder head castings which caused warping, and inadequately specified water pump bearings hurt the Stag’s 3.0-litre V8 more than history should have recorded. Furthermore, the knowledge to repair and maintain the unit wasn’t
ENGINE: 2997cc V8 POWER: 145bhp 0-60mph: 10.7-11.3 secs TOP SPEED: 115mph ECONOMY: 25mpg WEIGHT: 2807lb/1275kg BUY ONE FOR: £10,000-£25,000 easily shared or disseminated to the garage trade quickly enough; when timing chains were a service item at 25,000 miles, engines would fail as often from botched maintenance as from shoddy construction. Clubs and specialists have since exorcised these faults through care and rebuilding the engine – properly. The Stag’s V8 had so much to prove – doubleoverhead cam heads were on the drawing board, but never left it – but the same thing that made it endemic to the Stag made it easy to kill when British Leyland was looking to save money. That engine made it into production by being signed off before Triumph was swallowed by the BLMC conglomerate. The earliest feasibility studies wanted the Stag to use Triumph’s existing 2.0- or 2.5-litre straight-sixes, but Harry Webster’s plan to utilise Lewis Dawtry’s family of engines – stretching from a 1.5-litre slantfour to a V8 – eventually came to fruition when he convinced management that a V8 was essential for export. It was also a massive boon
for Triumph that the 3.0-litre V8 existed. Had it not been production-ready at the time of the BLMC merger, the Stag would have used Rover’s 3.5-litre V8. Yet again, politics intervened; the Triumph faithful, in an apocryphal tale, told management the unit wouldn’t fit, much in the same way that Jaguar’s engineers were believed when the XJ40 swerved a Rover V8 during its development.
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BL didn’t check, and besides, it simply didn’t have the capacity to send Rover V8s to Triumph; the Range Rover was taking every spare unit available, curtailing the prospects of another highperformance GT, the MGB GT V8. Subsequent owners have converted Stags to Rover V8s, thus making good on the possibility that an alternative timeline might have afforded us. So, what did that leave the Stag
Spring Special 2022
