High-tech concepts can spawn iconic models, but others don’t make the cut. Here are just a few…
WORDS SIMON HUCKNALL PHOTOGRAPHY HAYMARKET ARCHIVE/BRITISH MOTOR MUSEUM
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You’ve got to love the UK’s low-volume car industry. Brimming with ambition, but more often lacking the funds to realise the potential of many of its most exciting and innovative designs, it has left in its wake a series of so-near-yet-so-far concepts that never quite made the grade. And when it comes to would-be sports cars, this country has an enviable track record.
Some have emerged from resin-dust-encrusted workshops in the Midlands to enjoy fleeting fame before being unceremoniously scrapped. Others were conceived to change our perceptions about a brand, before their technical complexity set alarm bells ringing with the bean-counters. And by the time a few more had been unveiled, changing market forces had simply prevailed enough to kill their original business cases.
But not all of our homespun sports car concepts were produced by manufacturers synonymous with such vehicles. Mainstream doyen Vauxhall can take a bow here, in its quest to find a more youthful following during the 1960s. At the other end of the market, Bentley dabbled in the supercar world, while Aston Martin’s Bulldog was so forward-thinking that its true mettle wasn’t tested until last year. But they all have one thing in common: none ever saw a showroom.
1 Triumph Lynx
In the late 1960s, there were rumours that the lucrative American market was set for an all-out ban on new convertibles, which would have impacted quite massively on BLMC’s portfolio. By 1972, Triumph’s TR6 successor, the TR7, had been signed off as a fixed-head coupé, but the company was still left with the open-topped four-seater Stag.
Partly buoyed by the success of Reliant’s coupé-cum-estate Scimitar, Triumph embarked on the Lynx programme, which took the upcoming TR7’s platform and added 12in to its wheelbase to create a low-slung, sporty four-seater hatchback. Powered by Rover’s now fuel-injected 190bhp 3528cc V8, the Lynx had all the ingredients of a sleek, swift grande routière, with 125mph performance.
Alas, while the Lynx’s front-end styling was taken from Harris Mann’s TR7, aft of the scuttle was the work of Leyland’s in-house design team – and the result was incohesive to say the least, borne out by its poor performance in US sales clinics. Torrid industrial relations at Triumph’s Speke plant, where the Lynx was due to be built, resulted in the project being scrapped in 1978.
Anorak fact MG had also planned to base its BGT repla
