Triumph - Triumph Acclaim
The Triumph Acclaim was built by British Leyland starting in late 1981. It was based on a Honda Ballade, with all bodywork pressed out at Cowley. Harold Musgrove, who was Sir Michael Edwardes right hand man ensured a high UK built content for the build from intereior, drive shafts and so on, providing alot of work to British components manufacturers, and because the Acclaim wasn't an imported Japanese kit it was able to be sold into Europe easily (and France which had strict quotas for new Japanese cars) because of the high British origin of parts, while it was not counted as a Japanese car import into the UK. Triumph Acclaim poduction contiuned to 1984, after which the Triumph name was not used again. The British car designs were so dated, with engine designs going back decades and so on, that Sir Michael Edwardes initiated talks with Honda to rectify this and keep car manufacturing at BL.
It was during this period that Dunlop vastly increased their tyre prices to British Leyland, knowing they could, much of it to do with Union activity in the era of "Red Robbo". Musgrove at BL had to accept, while shortly afterwards he arranged to get Michelin to supply instead, leading to thousands of job losses at Dunlop.
Triumph Acclaim tyre size for the base models was the 145R13 (sometimes quoted 145/80R14), which Blockley makes a superb example of, while the mid range Acclaim HL and HLS models were fitted with the slightly larger 155R13 tyre size, also referred to as a 155/80R13. Blockley manufactures both these sizes - see full details at the links below:
