The year 1959 was a great year for cars. The Mini and the Ford Anglia were both launched, but the show was stolen by the advent of a remarkable little car that would sell around the world and form the basis of a whole breed of popular saloons and sports cars; the Triumph Herald.
The Herald was unveiled in its original 948cc saloon and coupe versions at the Earl’s Court Motor Show in April 1959. A kitten-healed Miss Triumph demonstrated the front-hinged bonnet, revealing the whole of the engine and front suspension, while a coupe revolved enticingly on a turntable, showing off sleek Italian styling with large areas of glass and two-tone paintwork. It would herald (pun intended) the start of the 1960’s.
More spectacular still was a night at the Royal Albert Hall, hosted by Bob Monkhouse. Four specifically trained Standard-Triumph apprentices appeared carrying pieces of a Herald. In less than four minutes, they had assembled a fully working car and driven it off stage. The audience was stunned into an astonished silence before rapturous applause brought the apprentices back on.
The amazing assembling act was refined down to three minutes, repeated at European motor shows, and the Herald was launched in style. A newspaper critic asserted that “the Triumph badging sets it in a class above the outgoing Standard 8 and 10 range, which always conveyed an air of ration books and boiled cabbage”.
There was nothing “boiled cabbage” about the Herald. This was the sleekest of Italian chic, distilling sporty glamour of Ferrari and Maserati into an everyday four-seater saloon and delivering it to British buyers as a practical and affordable car.
It has been designed by Giovanni Michelotti, who was commissioned by Standard Triumph to produce a totally new model to set the style of the forthcoming decade. His prototype body shell arrived in Coventry on Christmas Eve, 1957. When the directors saw the almost unbelievably pretty coupe on their studio turntable, they were so delighted, they downed tools and went out to celebrate.
There is an industry legend that the car was named Herald after the Managing Director’s yacht. There was certainly no design by committee. Production models scarcely differed from Michelotti’s concept, showing the excellence of his design and willingness of his employers to accept original genius. Michelotti’s monogram would appear on the chrome bonnet-release catches of all Heralds and the Vitesse, Spitfire and GT6 models that followed.
Prototypes were driven the length of Africa from Cape Town to Tangier, generating much publicity and showing the reliability of then new cars. When they appeared in Britain’s showrooms, they caused a clamour of excitement. At just over £700, the Herald was priced above some of its competitors but embodied an enviable cachet of sportiness and modernity.
Despite the rakish body, huge rear window, all-round independent suspension, white rubber bumpers, distinctive fins, hooded headlamp covers and overall “swept wing” appearance, the Herald was not as modern as it looked. Standard-Triumph had decided to take what many considered to be a retrograde step of building their new car with a separate chassis rather than use the monocoque style of construction like other major manufacturers.
The idea was to facilitate assembly of different variants including saloon, coupe, convertible, estate car and van using a common chassis. The benefits to future generations of classic car enthusiasts have included superb accessibility giving ease of working and comparatively simple repair and restoration. If a car’s body can be unbolted from its chassis, every panel and component including the chassis itself can be repaired or replaced and many Heralds have undergone more than one “body-off” rebuild to keep them going today.
The gigantic, 1,000-feet-long factory was built at Canley in the West Midlands with a state-of-the-art paint shop and three parallel assembly lines. It was completed in 1960, cost £2 million and built more than 500,000 Heralds along with all the Triumph Vitesses, Spitfires and GT6’s.
The earliest Heralds were slightly underpowered, and their interiors lacked refinement, but subsequent models were given bigger engines, better carpets and wooden dashboards. Sales took off. The cars were especially popular in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand: some were even built in Italy for the European market. A version called the Gazel was successful in India.
The now much- sought- after coupe was discontinued in in 1964 – it was deemed to be in competition with the Spitfire, but Herald saloons and convertibles were produced through several upgrades until 1971, the final 13/60 model being the most powerful and best equipped.
I have had a long and happy relationship with the Herald. After learning to drive as a boy on disused airfields, a yellow Herald was the first car in which I “went solo”. In the early years of the 21st century I bought a 1962 Herald 1200 and shared it with my mother as a four-seater running mate for my Spitfire 1500 which had been bought new in 1980. Its dazzling red and white paintwork led some fellow enthusiasts to dub it “Santa Claus’s Herald. It was a stylish and lovable car, and I understand it is still on the road with its current owners. When I drive my Spitfire today, I know it would never have existed without the Triumph Herald.
You’ll always smile when you see a Herald. It has the air of an English Sixties girl smartly suited in Italian clothes with a dash of Fifties glamour. It is rightly valued as a pretty, practical and affordable car.
Note: this article was published in “This England” magazine, Winter 2019 and was provided to TSOA SA by Tom Olthoff.
