Sports Cars from the 1950s

Sports cars from the 1950s don’t come any better than the various Triumph and Mercedes Benz 1950s automobiles.

Remarkably, the British company Triumph's first plunge in to the sports car market of the 1950s was stillborn.

The West Midlands based car manufacturer launched a prototype of their TR1 at the London Motor Show where it was mauled by the critics.

The TR1 was a mishmash of components from earlier Triumph motorcars as well as those from vehicles of the parent Standard Motor Company.

The TR1 prototype was described as a “death trap” by Ken Richardson of BRM and it was a case of back to the drawing board for Triumph's designers.

Having faced criticism for their efforts with the TR1, the reaction to Triumph's follow up, the TR2, was completely different. Launched in 1953 over 8,000 were produced over the next two years.

Independent testing also showed the TR2 to be a worthy sports car as it was demonstrated it could hit a top speed of 170 MPH - double the speed of its TR1 predecessor - and accelerate from 0 to 60 in 12 seconds.

In 1955 Triumph further developed their sports cars from the 1950s range with the introduction of the TR3, launched in the autumn of that year.

The design changes saw the TR3 sport an egg crate style grille and the model even included the option of a removable rear seat. A year later the TR3 also became the first British manufactured sports car with front disc brakes as standard.

Germany's major contribution to the development of the sports cars from the 1950s was made by Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz achieved renown among sports car enthusiasts of the 1950s with its launch of the 300SL in 1954.

The 300SL , the fastest vehicle on the road at the time, was based on Mercedes' successful racing sports car first manufactured two years earlier.

The 300SL was inspired by trans-Atlantic car importer Max Hoffman who believed the model could take the American import market by storm. The model certainly had the attributes to appeal to style conscious Americans. The 300SL came with gull wing doors and was available both as a hard top and as a convertible.

Over 80 per cent of the 300SL's produced were sold in the United States. This had a major impact on Mercedes Benz's image in the United States as it saw the German car manufacturer become renowned as a producer of sports cars from the 1950s.

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