109 in total - though has been claimed the FIA had included Escorts modified to RS1800 specification by others, after sale, despite this clearly being outside the FIA's rules. Quality problems Quality problems tended to undermine the car's image in the marketplace. This was primarily the result of the poor relations between management and workforce and frequent strikes at the Speke factory near Liverpool. Quality improved when production was moved to the Canley plant in Coventry, and later Solihull. However, it was too late to save the car's reputation. In its Frankfurt Motor Show preview edition of September 1977, the German magazine Auto, Motor und Sport reported that the engine of a TR7 press car had given up the ghost and "started to boil" while undergoing a maximum speed measurement exercise over a stretch of track as part of a road test. At the time of the report the cause of the problem was still unknown; British Leyland technicians had already been investigating the car, without comment, for nineteen days. Production volumes In total approximately 115,000 TR7 models were built which includes 28,864 soft top/convertibles, and approximately 2,800 TR8 models. People often cite that the TR7 failed to sell in the same volumes as its predecessors, however this is complete Urban Myth when you consider only 8,484 TR250's, 2,947 TR5's and 91,850 TR6's were produced vs 115,000 TR7's. By the late 1970s, sports cars were becoming a low volume niche product that British Leyland could ill-afford to support, given its volume car business was already struggling. A rationalisation plan introduced by incoming BL chairman Michael Edwardes saw the TR7 put on life support by axing the MG MGB as it was felt that the latter was cannibalizing the TR7's sales - however this controversial decision failed to revive the TR7's fortunes when it too was axed in 1981, with the end of car production at Solihull, which was to become exclusively a Land Rover plant. The demise of the TR7 (and the Dolomite a year earlier) marked the end of the lineage of Triumph sports cars, with the marque continuing on the Triumph Acclaim until 1984. The Acclaim however was a licence-built Honda Ballade, built at the Cowley assembly plant and was pitched as a family saloon rather than as a sports car. References External links 1980s cars British Leyland vehicles Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Roadsters Sports cars TR7 Cars introduced in