UYM 6 - Ex Goodwood TR3a
UYM 6 left the Triumph factory at Canley on January 31st 1958, it is a very early example of the TR3a. Built as a left hand drive car on the production line it was finished in British Racing Green with Red trim and Fawn weather equipment. Production records show that the car was equipped with overdrive, a heater and wire wheels as well as competition springs and shock absorbers. At some stage it left the line and is believed to have entered the Triumph Competition Department, headed up by Ken Richardson. Here the car was converted to right hand drive and gained a works hardtop with rally lamp. More interestingly however it received two further upgrades, which until recently were unheard of for a customer TR. The car gained a 2138cc engine, 4 months prior to their usage by the works rally TRs and long before the introduction of this as a customer option. It is believed that against the wishes of Triumphs’ board of directors Ken Richardson had produced four sets of these pistons and liners to try on customers’ competition cars and it is likely that it is one of these sets of experimental components made it into the engine of UYM 6. The final addition to the specification of UYM 6 concerns its braking system. It has been confirmed by its first owner that the car was supplied with the all-round Dunlop disc brakes that the car still wears to this day. This significant discovery substantiated by a period photograph is once again completely unheard of until now. Only a few works competition cars were ever known to have left the factory with rear disc brakes, the Dunlop discs fitted to the (recently restored) 1955 Le Mans TR2 registered PKV 376 are the most likely pattern as all of the later works cars were equipped with the Girling variety.
Upon leaving the competitions department UYM 6 was delivered to a Mr Richard JE Dangerfield, son of Roland Dangerfield, Chairman of Temple Press Limited, publishers of The Motor magazine as well as many other motoring related publications. Richard Dangerfield received UYM 6 as a 21st birthday present and wasted no time in entering the car into competition. A period photograph taken at the 37th Members Meeting at Goodwood in 1959 shows the car in its competition guise, complete with aero screen, competition mirror, racing roundels and most importantly, its rear disc brakes. The car was campaigned by Mr Dangerfield until it was sold in 1964 into a club rallying career. It passed through several owners during this period before arriving at the door of a Mr Bernard Payne who after some use finally laid the car up due to a suspected broken crankshaft. It was stored for a period of almost 40 years, in an increasingly poor state but still complete with its original engine and of course those rear disc brakes. It passed in 2010 into the hands of Tony Sheach, a work colleague of Mr Payne and a prominent TR driver and collector, well known within the TR Register for his successful exploits in a TR4 rally car amongst others.
Tony has now sold the car to my father Ian May and in association with Autohistoric Limited we plan to restore the car to its period ‘Goodwood’ specification.
Follow UYM 6's restoration here.
We are of course still researching the history of UYM 6 so any further information would be gratefully received.
Gregg May
Autohistoric Limited