Rusty But Trusty

While it’s not for everyone, there’s something nice about bright yellow paint on Malaise-era cars. Maybe it’s that the bright cheeriness of yellow helps offset the drabness of giant bumpers emphasizing what was sometimes already gawky styling. Think about a Datsun B210 in brown, and then imagine the same car in yellow Honey Bee trim. It’s not that it makes it a better car, but it’s certainly a lot easier on the eyes, and 30-odd years on, might make you feel more warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia than root beer brown or beige. While the TR7 was not a drab shape, it was certainly controversial, and it did have rather protuberant bumpers. Finding them in yellow is pretty unusual (well, unless you type “yellow TR7” into the world’s most popular search engine) so let’s consider this 1980 Triumph TR7 for sale for $2900 in Covington, GA.

For your average mustachioed, Marlboro-smoking customer looking to buy a British sports car in 1980, your choices were this, a wheezing Spitfire in its last year wearing the biggest possible bumpers British Leyland could find, or an MGB like the one featured last week. It’s probably fairer to compare this car to a 1980 Mazda RX-7 since it’s a properly modern sports car. This one wears clean stock wheels and a black decal job on its rear haunches, as well as the standard adhesive badges (on trend at the time, and conveniently cheaper for a dying automaker).

The car looks in good condition overall, though it’s said to have some surface rust – where that is isn’t clear though, as it’s not visible on the most likely places – horizontal surfaces. It’s said to run and drive fairly well, and as can be seen, the top is fairly new too. The nice thing about these cars is they’re civil enough to use as daily drivers, though you’ll certainly have to spend some time debugging it. But you were expecting that on a 36-year-old car of any nationality, right?

The interior does show a little bit of damage to the driver’s seat, but looks pretty good otherwise. It’s a relief to see the manual shifter, as some of these cars were delivered with an automatic. With a 1980 build car, you’re likely to have escaped the truly nasty period of labor unrest, and this might even be a fuel injected model, though those were mostly badged as such. It’s unfortunate there are no shots of the engine, but at the price, this car is worth a look, no?

Tags: british, convertible, Feature, tr7, triumph

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