1975 Triumph Dolomite Sprint
Discussion
Ownership of a sheepskin coat / trilby hat combo requires changing your name by deedpole to Reg, Brian, Gerald or at a push, Big Dave.
Looking at your spiffing Dolly reminds me of the three small Triumphs my Auntie Joan had in the early '70s, a pair of 1300s followed by a 1500, all great little cars which ferried us (my cousins and I) all over the place on family visits. The 1500 was stored in her rickety old garage and replaced with a 2.5Pi which gave her no end of gip, so much so that it was sold and the 1500 returned to daily hacking duties until it died of rust c.1980. These cars used to be everywhere when I was a nipper, the only examples I see now are the odd one or two at shows and the rather tasty looking blue one over at Gaydon. Which brings me back round to your Dolly - it's near identical twin lives in the transport Museum in downtown Cov.
Looking at your spiffing Dolly reminds me of the three small Triumphs my Auntie Joan had in the early '70s, a pair of 1300s followed by a 1500, all great little cars which ferried us (my cousins and I) all over the place on family visits. The 1500 was stored in her rickety old garage and replaced with a 2.5Pi which gave her no end of gip, so much so that it was sold and the 1500 returned to daily hacking duties until it died of rust c.1980. These cars used to be everywhere when I was a nipper, the only examples I see now are the odd one or two at shows and the rather tasty looking blue one over at Gaydon. Which brings me back round to your Dolly - it's near identical twin lives in the transport Museum in downtown Cov.
![](http://thumbsnap.com/sc/w8Vj1Efs.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="http://thumbsnap.com/0BNfNgpK" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]http://thumbsnap.com/sc/0BNfNgpK.jpg)
Breadvan72 said:
The only yellow one around South Oxon/Bucks that I know of lives in Risborough. I have seen another yellow one fuelling up at Chinnor (tut, tut, ordinary BP, but should be V-Power for a Sprint).
LHD Dollies were sold in France and the Netherlands, IIRC. There may be a dark blue LHD Sprint for sale in Poland, thought to be the only one there. My squeeze is Polish, and I have suggested that she buys the car and keeps it at her family's country shack near Krakow, but so far she is demurring.
LHD Dollies were sold in France and the Netherlands, IIRC. There may be a dark blue LHD Sprint for sale in Poland, thought to be the only one there. My squeeze is Polish, and I have suggested that she buys the car and keeps it at her family's country shack near Krakow, but so far she is demurring.
Breadvan72 said:
That is cracking. I really need to get myself another sprint.I have noticed that pretty much as soon as a Sprint appears on carandclassic, it sells. The Sprint's hour appears to have arrived. This is partly because other classics of the era are now very spenner - a BMW 2002 tii for example will cost about three times the price of a Sprint. It may also reflect the fact that those Sprints that survive, like many Stags, are now the cars that they should have been when new, having been tweaked to get rid of the BL build quality issues. It used to be standard pub wisdom that every Sprint would boil itself and warp its cylinder head in a thrice, but nowadays the engine tends to be screwed together better, and the cooling system improved. My Sprint runs too cool at the moment, so the heater is even more rubbish than usual.
I do like a Dolly Sprint here's one that's in Group 2 spec looks like it might be a road legal ex racer
http://www.autoscout24.com/offers/triumph-dolomite...
Triumph Dolomite Sprint 2000cc . processing gruppo2 race ready allegatoJ 76. Change approved close , racing camshaft , twin front brake calipers , master cylinder with double rocker , original glass surfaces etc . HTP international passport . Road use estremo. Auto perfect .
http://www.autoscout24.com/offers/triumph-dolomite...
Triumph Dolomite Sprint 2000cc . processing gruppo2 race ready allegatoJ 76. Change approved close , racing camshaft , twin front brake calipers , master cylinder with double rocker , original glass surfaces etc . HTP international passport . Road use estremo. Auto perfect .
1 HP, pretty hot ship!
There is a youtube somewhere of a Dolly Sprint racing and winning against more modern cars (including a Honda S2000) in a Netherlands race series from a few years ago, although I do not know what sort of tweaks that Sprint has had.
One or more of the quite successful BL Team Sprints usually shows up at events such as Goodwood. I seem to recall that Mansell had an early drive in one of the BL Sprints, but I might be making that up.
There is a youtube somewhere of a Dolly Sprint racing and winning against more modern cars (including a Honda S2000) in a Netherlands race series from a few years ago, although I do not know what sort of tweaks that Sprint has had.
One or more of the quite successful BL Team Sprints usually shows up at events such as Goodwood. I seem to recall that Mansell had an early drive in one of the BL Sprints, but I might be making that up.
Breadvan72 said:
It used to be standard pub wisdom that every Sprint would boil itself and warp its cylinder head in a thrice, but nowadays the engine tends to be screwed together better, and the cooling system improved.
Which says everything about "standard pub wisdom" - my mother had two of 'em back in the day, and I don't recall problems with either. Mind you, the one that was sold on to my uncle did seem to become VERY unreliable, but that probably says more about him than the car...Breadvan72 said:
1 HP, pretty hot ship!
There is a youtube somewhere of a Dolly Sprint racing and winning against more modern cars (including a Honda S2000) in a Netherlands race series from a few years ago, although I do not know what sort of tweaks that Sprint has had.
One or more of the quite successful BL Team Sprints usually shows up at events such as Goodwood. I seem to recall that Mansell had an early drive in one of the BL Sprints, but I might be making that up.
Sort of, with the Mansell thing. His F3 car had a Sprint engine.There is a youtube somewhere of a Dolly Sprint racing and winning against more modern cars (including a Honda S2000) in a Netherlands race series from a few years ago, although I do not know what sort of tweaks that Sprint has had.
One or more of the quite successful BL Team Sprints usually shows up at events such as Goodwood. I seem to recall that Mansell had an early drive in one of the BL Sprints, but I might be making that up.
You may well be thinking of Joachim Bunkus, his car is full race spec, and a bit mental.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMla5olFGBY
Not the standard gearbox, but it is a Sprint engine.
Thanks, that jogs the memory, and, yes that Dutch dude is the guy I was thinking of. Pretty rapid, from the looks of the video, and there is one from inside the Honda that shows the Dolly getting past the Honda at some point.
I see that the F3 version of the engine has fuel injection. Triumph, probably correctly, did not try that on the road car, as at that time the early injection system used on the TR sports cars and the big saloon was proving a bit troublesome, I gather.
I see that the F3 version of the engine has fuel injection. Triumph, probably correctly, did not try that on the road car, as at that time the early injection system used on the TR sports cars and the big saloon was proving a bit troublesome, I gather.
My father used a to sprint a Sprint in the early seventies, when they were new. It couldn't hold a tune, but when it was freshly set up he went from nowhere to being competitive with the big boys in the Aston Martin owners club events.
They were going to be called the Dolomite 135, but BL standards were such at the time that they couldn't maintain the necessary tolerances and virtually all production cars were badged Sprint with nearly 10bhp less.
They were going to be called the Dolomite 135, but BL standards were such at the time that they couldn't maintain the necessary tolerances and virtually all production cars were badged Sprint with nearly 10bhp less.
That is the standard story, but in Matthew Vale's book on the Dolomite, he says that the 135 name was dropped because Triumph switched to the DIN system for measuring power output, which resulted in a number 5 per cent lower than would have been the case using the previous method. I have no idea which of these is true, as neither version is traced to a verifiable source.
I would not be surprised if the former story was the right one, because one of BL's major problem was old and worn tools. Lord Stokes was (a) an idiot, (b) knew nothing about engineering, and (c) favoured short term gain over long term investment (this, and not trade union militancy, was arguably the core industrial malaise of the UK in the 1970s). My late father told the story of a visit to a 1970s BL production line by engineers and managers from Honda, who asked how often the line was retooled. The answer was that it had been retooled after the War, whereas Honda at that time was re tooling every eight years.
Another of my father's anecdotes concerned watching a worker doing a factory devised bodge to fit some components to Marinas (possibly something to do with the front suspension, I can't recall exactly which bits). The parts as made were so out of whack that a work around had been jury rigged on the line to get the parts to fit. My dad observed that the bodge would fail once placed under load. The worker said that he realised this, but the guys on the line had been told that they had to get the cars out to the dealers ASAP, and the dealers would deal with the problem under warranty. This, my dad inferred, would place the figures on the right bit of the right balance sheet and give the illusion that things were OK.
I note, however, that outside BL manufacturers were quite prepared to tell fibs about power ratings. For example Lotus sold the big valve variant of the Elan Plus Two as a 130, meaning that the 1600 twin cam engine developed 130 BHP, but in fact it developed 125 BHP. NB Lotus telling fibs NB Colin Chapman, need I say more! I vaguely recall Vauxhall doing something similar, but am not sure about that.
I mention this because it could possibly reinforce the Vale version of events. BL marketers were about as scrupulous as other marketers at the time, which is to say not very, and might have had little difficulty in badging the Sprint as a 130 or 135 if they had wanted to, regardless of real power outputs from production cars, if the problem had simply been that the power ratings were inconsistent. They would have said, well, you got that one over there to do 135, so that means that they all do. The engineers on the test rigs got the engine to 150 BHP*, but they were probably building it carefully by hand.
* Allegedly while Spen King was on his hollies and/or on a spying mission in northern Italy. He was mildly pissed off when he got back as he hadn't told the team to do that.
I would not be surprised if the former story was the right one, because one of BL's major problem was old and worn tools. Lord Stokes was (a) an idiot, (b) knew nothing about engineering, and (c) favoured short term gain over long term investment (this, and not trade union militancy, was arguably the core industrial malaise of the UK in the 1970s). My late father told the story of a visit to a 1970s BL production line by engineers and managers from Honda, who asked how often the line was retooled. The answer was that it had been retooled after the War, whereas Honda at that time was re tooling every eight years.
Another of my father's anecdotes concerned watching a worker doing a factory devised bodge to fit some components to Marinas (possibly something to do with the front suspension, I can't recall exactly which bits). The parts as made were so out of whack that a work around had been jury rigged on the line to get the parts to fit. My dad observed that the bodge would fail once placed under load. The worker said that he realised this, but the guys on the line had been told that they had to get the cars out to the dealers ASAP, and the dealers would deal with the problem under warranty. This, my dad inferred, would place the figures on the right bit of the right balance sheet and give the illusion that things were OK.
I note, however, that outside BL manufacturers were quite prepared to tell fibs about power ratings. For example Lotus sold the big valve variant of the Elan Plus Two as a 130, meaning that the 1600 twin cam engine developed 130 BHP, but in fact it developed 125 BHP. NB Lotus telling fibs NB Colin Chapman, need I say more! I vaguely recall Vauxhall doing something similar, but am not sure about that.
I mention this because it could possibly reinforce the Vale version of events. BL marketers were about as scrupulous as other marketers at the time, which is to say not very, and might have had little difficulty in badging the Sprint as a 130 or 135 if they had wanted to, regardless of real power outputs from production cars, if the problem had simply been that the power ratings were inconsistent. They would have said, well, you got that one over there to do 135, so that means that they all do. The engineers on the test rigs got the engine to 150 BHP*, but they were probably building it carefully by hand.
* Allegedly while Spen King was on his hollies and/or on a spying mission in northern Italy. He was mildly pissed off when he got back as he hadn't told the team to do that.
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