This incredibly rare Triumph TRS raced twice at Le Mans

We spoke to its current owner Dr. Steve Roberts during the Classic Sunday Breakfast Club to find out more about this car that was built specifically to compete at Le Mans (hence the name), of which only four were ever built in 1959. At the 1960 Le Mans it finished 19th overall with drivers Ninian Sanderson and Peter Bolton, though its greatest achievement came the following year, when the 11th placed pairing of Les Leston and Rob Slotemaker led home a three-car finish for Triumph, earning the overall team prize.

That, however, proved to be the TRS’s  high point for some time, as Dr. Roberts explained: “After Le Mans, this car ended up in America, did some racing, and then was retired and spent 40 years in a barn in Virginia. Then, a restorer discovered it and restored it in Germany.”

After coming into ownership, Dr. Roberts himself had the car restored, but because the TRS is such a rare car there are only a handful of specialist garages capable of working on it. “It's very bespoke. Because there's only two engines left in the world all the parts have to be hand built. Even the brake pads are bespoke, so when I had to get new brake pads they had to be built from scratch.”

Although undergoing a restoration, the Triumph’s condition remains very much how you would have found it at the start line in northern France. It retains its original 2.0-litre twin cam engine built especially for competing at Le Mans, nicknamed the ‘Sabrina’. Thankfully, this Triumph’s engine runs frequently, with all the car’s quirks intact.

“It's a road legal car,” said Dr. Roberts, “and it's quite a cool car to drive on the road. It has no speedo so you have to drive off the revs, and it's got no fuel gauge, because you don't need one in the race. The gearbox is not a standard Triumph gearbox, it’s a much longer gear – first gear in this car is like second gear. Apparently it did 140mph on the Mulsanne Straight in period.”

“I actually met one of the guys who built this car, a mechanic called David Gleed. He came up to me a couple of years ago and said, ‘I built this car.’ He said that the switches on the dashboard were from an old World War II plane. I like the fact it's kind of got those quirky bits about it.”

With its wartime connections and original Le Mans-racer setup, quirky is certainly the word for it. Significant features taken for granted in any ordinary road car have had to be gradually added as the Triumph has adapted to life on the road.

“The whole dashboard is pretty much original, it has had some modifications – indicators and things which wouldn't have been on it in the race, but otherwise, it's pretty much as it was. This is exactly how it looked at the beginning of the ‘61 race.

“Obviously when you're racing at Le Mans reliability is everything. So for instance, these leather buckles on the bonnet – there’s a normal bonnet catch but they put the [leather] ones on there so if the catch breaks, you can still shut the bonnet in the race. It's even got two distributors in there and two parallel brake lines so again, if one brake line goes, you can switch the other one or switch the distributor. It was done that way deliberately so if there were any faults in the race, the driver could get out and switch things over.”

It may have been born an endurance racer, but for this 65-year-old car its competition days are now over. “I don't race it,” explained Dr. Roberts. “I've done a few hill climbs in it, but that's about it. It's more for going to shows and to drive around. [Being] in traffic or on a hill is quite challenging for this car, but when you get an open road it's got plenty of grunt when you need it.”

So, while the Triumph TRS is at home at events like the Goodwood Revival or a Sunday morning Breakfast Club, it is quite a sight to behold in a quaint village setting – “it's quite a cool car to turn up to your local pub in!”

But whether it be from eager spectators or the unsuspecting public, the air of mystery which surrounds this car can’t help but draw people in. “[People] just love it because they don't know what it is. Very few people know about the TRS. It doesn't look like a Triumph from the front, there's not a single Triumph badge on it as well, which is very weird. People think it's a replica, but it's not. There is one replica someone built, but [this is] the only original one in the UK,” with one model residing in Germany and the other pair still in America.

As strong as his love for his Triumph is, Dr. Roberts was clear that he is willing to part with it one day; the joyous experiences he has had in the car being something he wants someone else to enjoy. “I bought it for the experiences, and I've loved taking to shows and [doing] hill climbs, but I kind of feel like at some point, someone else can have those experiences.

“You know, I didn't buy it forever, I didn't buy it to make money on it or anything. I just wanted to have the experience of owning a quirky, cool car. I wanted to buy a car that was British [and] had done at least one lap of Le Mans. That was my criteria [and] I get to own one that actually did Le Mans twice, finished it both times and won a trophy. It was beyond my wildest dreams!”

“My favourite thing about it is the race history. I love the fact that this car raced alongside Graham Hill and Jim Clark and Stirling Moss. That's just amazing, isn't it? When I'm holding that steering wheel driving down a dual carriageway I can just imagine I'm on the Mulsanne Straight and that's pretty cool.”

Photography by Joe Harding.