This is not a serious headto-head battle where we are hoping to analyse our two chariots in minute detail and decide forensically which is the better car. Such an exercise would quite clearly be pointless, not least because some 35 years separate the two designs and they were each aimed at completely different markets. However, we did think that it would be fascinating to see how the company’s cars evolved after Triumph was rescued from oblivion by the Standard Motor Company in 1944.
The Triumph Roadster belongs to Triumph Roadster Club member Peter Mayes, while the Acclaim belongs to me and has featured in CW before. Both of us have driven many miles in our chosen steeds and as long-term owners we must be pretty well entrenched in our motoring preferences. So to add a little spice to the occasion, we asked Triumph’s former High Speed Development Engineer, Gordon Birtwistle, along to take the wheels. As you will have read in the People and Places feature last issue, Gordon drove just about any and every Triumph that was developed during the 1960s and 1970s, but he has never had the pleasure of piloting either a Roadster or an Acclaim.
Obviously it would take Gordon many miles to fully acclimatise to the Roadster, whereas it is much easier to jump into the Acclaim and relate that to the cars he used to test for a living. Therefore, we have included in this feature a few words from Peter Mayes to share some additional thoughts from his own considerable experience with the older car.
GORDON IN THE ROADSTER
My initialtook one to Switzerland. The mind boggles at how they managed that, and presumably they didn’t bother with much luggage. And as for the poor unfortunates relegated to the dickey seat in the back, getting in and out of there gracefully is all but impossible and wet weather protection nonexistent.
