To my knowledge this was the first 1979 Triumph TR7 sold in Amarillo, Texas. The sale price was slightly under $10,000.00, which was fairly expensive for 1979, and possibly still too expensive for 2010: let me elaborate a little on that.

        I had previously owned numerous Mustangs and other muscle cars, but I still missed the fun days of my 1960 MGA. Shortly after getting married I bought a 1973 MGB-GT, which was fun to drive, but it required almost as much time for repairs as did the MGA. Working ten to twelve or more hours a day at an aircraft plant as an inspector left me little time to consider restoring another MG, so the next best option was to buy a new sports car. Living in a medium sized city only offered the choice of buying a new MG, BMW, or Triumph. I had no love for the BMW styling of the seventies, and I was not ready nor willing to own another MG, so the Triumph seemed like a good choice.

        Much of the Triumph's styling reminded me of the Ferrari Daytona (which is a sports car I would still like to own regardless of dependability). While driving around town at night, it was noticeable that the TR7 received a lot of attention. England may not have discovered how to produce dependable electrical and mechanical components, but the English are quite good with style.

        The TR7's performance was pleasant but not remarkable. The car handled well enough but it felt a bit unpredictable at speeds of over ninety miles per hour. A portion of the problem was the set of Goodyear tires that handled well on dry pavement but had precious little traction on the wet. As a comparison to today's cars, the Triumph's acceleration and top end speed might be comparable to a late model Japanese/Korean economy car. I didn't own the car long enough to acquire a good idea of its potential, but generally - and relative to common Mustangs of the era - the TR7's performance was not what fond memories are made of.

        The first problems started within a few days of buying the TR7. A rather nasty grinding noise was heard from under the hood, which the dealer's mechanics could not discover the cause of. Upon my determining that the dealership's mechanics were not qualified to service any vehicle, I investigated the noise myself and found that the bolts holding on the air conditioner compressor were coming loose, which allowed the compressor to drop just enough for the pulley to touch the mount and make the grinding noise. Shortly afterwards the transmission synchronizers started going out, requiring that I shift at specific rpms to prevent the gears from grinding. As the weeks passed, more and more problems arose. Within a few months I had begun voicing the humor that the only things still working properly on the car were the engine and the German-brand radio. The engine sounded like a thrashing machine at high rpm, and surely it would have blown if I had kept the car much longer.

        An oddity of the style did leave a lasting memory: with the top up and while driving through a puddle of water (probably about a foot or so deep) on an exit ramp at highway speed, water rushed into the interior from around the windows with such force that I momentarily believed that I had completely submerged the car. Coupled with the slippery Goodyear tires, the TR7 was not well suited for rainy weather.

        While stopped at a red light, my wife was run into from the rear, and possibly partially due to the vehicle's light weight, she suffered a serious whiplash that still hurts her now over thirty years later. We had traded in a 1979 Pinto on the TR7, and we will never know if the Pinto would have been safer in a low-speed rear-end collision (Pintos did have a bad reputation of exploding into flames when rear-ended at high speeds). We didn't own the TR7 more than perhaps six months before it was basically undrivable due to the numerous electrical and mechanical failures, and since the local dealership refused to honor the warranty, we let the car go.

        Thinking back, I honestly cannot remember anything much good about the car except for the styling. Perhaps my TR7 was a rare lemon, I will never know, but in my opinion the TR7 was a waste of life and money, the very worst car I have ever owned (and I have owned some mighty sorry cars over the years). I currently drive a 2005 Ford Focus ZX4 SES that is valued at around $10,000.00, and the Focus has far superior handling, ride, engine performance, comfort, and dependability than what the Triumph could ever hope for. If someone offered me a brand new TR7 in exchange for my Focus, I would not accept the trade; the TR7 was that bad.