Triumph Renown

Triumph 1800 Triumph 2000 TDA Triumph Renown
Triumph Renown saloon
Overview
Manufacturer	Standard Motor Company
Production	1946–54. 15,491 made
Body and chassis
Body style	4 door saloon, limousine.
Powertrain
Engine	1766 cc or 2088 cc Straight-4 overhead valve
Transmission	3-speed manual
Dimensions
Wheelbase	108 in (2,743 mm) 1800, 2000 & Renown 111 in (2,819 mm) TDC & limousine
Length	168 in (4,267 mm) 2000 178 in (4,521 mm)Renown 181 in (4,597 mm) TDC & limousine
Width	64 in (1,626 mm)
Height	65 in (1,651 mm)

The Triumph Renown is strictly the name given to the Triumph's large saloon car made from 1949 to 1954 but it is, in reality, part of a three-car series of the 1800, 2000 and Renown models. Together with the Triumph Roadster, they were the first vehicles to carry the Triumph badge following the company's takeover by the Standard Motor Company.

The Triumph Razoredge Owner's Club Ltd, formed in 1975, provides support to the remaining Razoredge saloons. As of 2016, the Club knows of around 250 of these cars distributed worldwide. The later two series of cars with chassis numbers commencing TDB and TDC have survived better than the earlier two variants. This may be due to the commonality of most of the mechanical parts with the Standard Vanguard which was produced during the same period.

These cars provide an elegant sedate motoring. experience. Those that were fitted with the Laycock de Normanville overdrive are able to cruise at around 55 to 60 MPH and return a fuel consumption of about 25 to 27 MPG.

The cars were distinctively styled in the later 1930s vogue for Razor Edge coachwork used in the 1940s by others including Austin for its big Sheerline. The six light (featuring three side windows on each side) design and the thin C pillars at the rear of the passenger cabin anticipated the increased window areas that would become a feature of British cars during the 1960s. The car's side profile resembled that of the contemporary prestigious saloons, which some felt was more than a coincidence. Similar styling subsequently appeared on the smaller Triumph Mayflower. The Managing Director of the Standard Motor Company at that time, Sir John Black, commissioned the design of the Razoredge saloon. There has been much discussion over the years as to exactly which designers of that period were responsible for the styling but it is very clear from the records that Sir John drove the production forward and used the Triumph name from the prewar Triumph company that had been bought by the Standard Motor Company.

The body was built by Mulliners of Birmingham in the traditional coachbuilder's method of sheet metal over a wooden frame. The principal panels were constructed not from steel, which was in short supply in the wake of the Second World War, but from aluminium. It had been used extensively for aircraft manufacture during the war, which had taken place in a number of car plants (known at the time as "shadow factories") in the English Midlands. But by the mid-1950s aluminium had become the more expensive metal, which may have hastened the Renown's demise.