ADA TR8....too complex mechanically and under-financed, questionable areodynamics. Interesting engine though, a V8 Rover 3500 fited with 2 Rotamaster turbos, getting about 475 hp. It seemed a good idea at the time.
Getting a suitable gearbox proved difficult, and imposed delays: a proposed British unit failed to turn up when expected, and the team were forced to turn back unwillingly to the brutish four-speed American Muncie Folk-crusher' box. This and a myriad of other delays meant that the car missed its proposed shake-down run at the Silverstone 1,000 km race, and arrived at Le Mans only in the nick of time, never having turned a wheel - nor indeed wheeled a turn - in
anger. The anger was still to come.
The British Racing Green Triumph passed through scrutineering without a hitch, to the accompaniment of hearty back-slapping by the TR Owners Club. The car had already sparked keen interest in the British press; at Le Mans, this all-British challenger to the Porsche was received with lots of European neck-straining, clucking of tongues,and clicking of shutters. It was after all, the first Triumph at Le Mans for 19 years . Certainly the run up to Le Mans had been anything but smooth.
Ian Harrower and drivers, John Sheldon and John Brindley, simply weren't able to go fast enough. The problem was not with themselves, nor even that there was anything essentially wrong with the car, but a number of failures, including faulty wheel castings, conspired with a numbing
drive-shaft vibration at 175mph to prevent the car from going any faster than that. And 175mph on the Mulsanne Straight just ain't enough.
Amid many tribulations, the team worked to correct the faults -and they succeeded, too. At the end of practice, the TR8 was timed at 201 mph on the Mulsanne Straight - the only Triumph, surely, to have exceeded 20Omph. But it was all to no avail. The requisite number of laps were not completed at sufficient speed, and the car failed to qualify.
To cut a sob story short, a lack of finance - despite frenzied and increasingly hectoring appeals
to British industry by Ian Harrower - meant that the TR never did get back to France, and it stayed at home for the occasional appearance in Britain, leaving those infidel Porsches to mop up
everywhere, condemned to live out its days as a beautiful might-have-been.
This was not for want of trying. Driver Derek Bell was persuaded to test the car. His quoted comments in the press at the time were kind ... he'd be glad to test the car again, to help with
development: he hoped they would find the necessary finance. The little-known story from those at the track-side at the time runs like this: Bell drives the car. he pulls up at the pits,a bystander asks him how it went and receives an honest reply; the engine needed development, the handling needed development, the car as it stood was not anything like good enough. What Bell
may or may not have known that this particular casual bystander was Mr Moneybags, the potential sponsor for 1981. The money never materialised.
http://www.team.net/...ody_lemans.html
hudge track modification ??? 
