“The Unlikely Tractor”

Article from the March 1971 issue of Car & Driver Magazine remembering the TR3. The article was titled: “The Unlikely Tractor” with the sub-title “Out of desperation Triumph mated an unimaginative British Saloon with, of all things, a tractor engine and the resultant issue went on to become one of the world’s most popular sports cars.”

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It was an evil sounding, raucous little bastard that would lure you into a corner all cozily understeering the way you’d expect from a car with 2-liters worth of good stout cast iron way up front, then throw up its hands and bumble off backward.
There was nothing delicate about it, either. None of your clipping daisies with a knockoff. You drove it like a USAC Sprinter, all elbows and shoulders, and when the weird harmonics set in at 3700 revs and it gave off that hairy chested bellow, it sounded ready to take on any Super Car in town. All 100 advertised horse-power of it.

Strangest of all, it never quit running. Somehow, electronics not withstanding, the flat top pistons kept popping up and down and the valves kept clattering away mile after mile after mile.

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