TriumphDolomite

01

Origins

The Dolomite of 1972 was the performance flowering of Triumph's front-drive 1300 shell, turned around to drive the rear wheels and given proper pace. Its landmark arrived in 1973: the Dolomite Sprint, whose 2-litre engine used an ingenious single-camshaft head operating sixteen valves — among the first multi-valve engines ever sold in volume, and its head design won a Design Council award. With 127 bhp, a slick overdrive gearbox and a wood-and-hide cabin, the Sprint was a genuine BMW 2002 rival from a company that was running out of money to develop it. It raced and rallied with credit, suffered the assembly-quality lottery of 1970s British Leyland, and soldiered on essentially unchanged until 1980. The affection it still commands is for what it proved: Triumph's engineers could innovate to the end.