Triumph Stag Manual Overdrive

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Recently voted Britain’s favourite classic car by the general public, the Michelotti-styled Triumph Stag was designed to be a gentleman's sports tourer to compete head-on with rivals like the Mercedes SL.

Sold between 1970 and 1978, it was a full four-seater and was powered by an all-new Triumph-designed 2,997cc V8 engine that produced 145bhp, sufficient to propel the car to a heady 115mph. With independent suspension all round, front disc brakes, power steering and a Borg-Warner 3-speed automatic gearbox option, it had sophisticated road manners and the most wonderfully woofly exhaust note of any car made on this side of the Atlantic.

Dating from November 1971 this particular Stag has the desirable manual overdrive gearbox and was purchased by the vendor two years ago with the intention of giving it to his son for use as a daily driver in London. To this end it was entrusted to Worcester Classic Cars with instructions to go through the car and make sure it would be up to the job.

Almost £4,000 later and the car was deemed good to go, the work including a full suspension overhaul with many new bushes and new rear springs; new clutch master and slave cylinders; new speedo cable and throttle linkage; new propshaft; new seat belts front and rear; new stainless steel exhaust; new battery plus numerous other minor items all detailed in invoices on file.

Needless to say the car is now in good running order throughout, as we discovered during a lengthy test drive on the occasion of our visit, and is due to have a fresh MOT in time for the sale, the last having expired on 4th May 2016 with no advisories recorded. Seven old MOTs back to 2009 show that the car has covered around 3,200 miles in the last seven years.

While the interior of the car is very smart with lovely walnut trim, good upholstery and a MotaLita steering wheel (original also included), the blue paintwork is not quite as smart and could be improved over time as desired. Only for sale due to a change of circumstances which mean that the car is no longer required by the son, dad has decided that he would be best off passing the car on to a new owner and hopefully recouping some of his costs!