1958 Triumph TR3A Works Rally Car

There are classic rally cars and then there are classic rally cars and this breathtaking 1958 Triumph TR3A Works Rally Car available from RM Sotheby’s definitely falls into the latter category. Forming part of their inventory for the London auction, this mesmerising machine has certainly turned our head here at The Coolector. The glorious looking 1958 Triumph TR3A Works Rally Car was built to race in the 1958 Monte Carlo Rally as one of four TR3As entered by the Triumph Works team.

One of the most engrossing lots we’ve seen from RM Sotheby’s in some time, the 1958 Triumph TR3A Works Rally Car boasts an illustrious period racing history with 2nd overall at the 1958 Circuit of Ireland Rally and 1st in class at the Tulip Rally in the same year. To add to the authenticity for the lucky new owner of this phenomenal piece of racing history, the lot is accompanied by historic racing photos of the car in action and selected workshop invoices to show the work that has been carried out on it over the years.

OLD SCHOOL COOL

At the 1958 Monte Carlo Rally, Standard-Triumph entered four Triumph TR3As, with each identified by near-sequential registration numbers: VRW 219 for the car driven by Annie Soisbault and co-driver Tish Ozanne, VRW 220 for Paddy Hopkirk and Jack Scott, VRW 221 for John Waddington and Mike Wood, and VRW 223 for Maurice Gatsonides and Marcel Bequart. Though this particular lot from RM Sotheby’s, VRW 221, was assigned to Waddington and Wood, poor weather conditions delayed the former, who was excluded from the event before reaching Lyon. However, excluded parties were permitted to continue to Monte Carlo to compete in the driving tests on the promenade at the end of the rally. The detour proved worthwhile when the pair finished third in the standalone event.

Sold by the Works in 1959 to former driver Ron Goldbourn, a succession of owners ensued for this 1958 Triumph TR3A Works Rally Car before it entered long-term ownership with Martyn King, who painstakingly restored the car with great care to preserve as many original features as he could. After a period of Austrian ownership between 1996 and 2009, the Triumph was repatriated to the United Kingdom and went on to compete in numerous historic rallies, that included the Three Castle Rally and the Rally of the Tests. In 2019, the car successfully completed the three-day Kitzbüheler Alpenrallye, driven by John Carr and Colin Dougherty.

Presented as a matching-numbers example with its uncommon competition factory hardtop and boasting rare overdrive transmission – not to mention the fact it is still wearing its original colours of Apple Green over brown leather – this TR3A remains a highly significant racing car. Between 2018 to 2020, the Triumph was subject to over £10,000-worth of servicing and preparation work by Just Historic Cars, specialists in 1950s and 1960s racing cars and it is believed to be the only one of the 1958 Monte Carlo cars by Triumph still intact.

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