The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

My recent research has indicated that the Triumph Dolomite Sprint's original intended name, was the Triumph Dolomite 135, because the designers of the 16-valve engine had the target of 135 bhp power for the mass-produced engine, but were only achieving 125~130 bhp in practice.

Were any cars actually produced under this name?

I am aware from a recent listing on E-bay, that Dolomite 135 front-nose badges were made.

TRIUMPH DOLOMITE 135 BADGE, NEW - £35 + £3 postage

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TRIUMPH-DOLO ... ctupt=true

Urban myth has it that the first Sprints were built badged up as Dolomite 135's, but prior to the official launch of the model it was identified that production tolerances resulted in variations of power output above, and below, the originally intended engine output of 135BHP after which the model was to be named.
This required a name change, and new badges to show the new name (i.e. Sprint), while waiting for the new Sprint badges to be produced it has been said that the 135 Badges on cars already built were covered up with tape, a possible example of this is shown in the photo in this thread (towards the bottom of the page):
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24255&start=105

If the above is correct I cannot confirm as I do not have first hand knowledge, however three of my 135 badges were purchased from an autojumbler who had a box of various badges. Having heard the story above when I spotted a number of badges the same shape as those used on Dolomites covered in tape (the only ones so covered) I pulled back the tape to see the 135 script.



So were Dolomites built as 135's probably, if any were registered as such, I do not know.

One other possibility that only recently crossed my mind (and not based on any particular knowledge of the day) is this:

Up to about 1971 power figures quoted by manufacturers were based on the SAE (imperial) bhp norm.

From 1972-on this was replaced by the kilowatt as the official power-measuring unit. Most manufacturers retained bhp for commercial and advertising purposes, as many customers were not familiar with the use of kilowatts for engines. But they did switch to using the metric (DIN) bhp instead of the imperial SAE norm.

The difference, if looking to other Triumph models could be up to about 5-6% less power output with the new DIN norm. See for example:

- Triumph 2000 saloon: 90 SAE bhp vs. 86 DIN bhp
- Triumph 1300 TC: 71 SAE bhp vs. 67 DIN bhp
- Triumph GT6: 104 SAE bhp vs. 99 DIN bhp
- Triumph TR6 carb. (US): 106 SAE bhp vs. 101 DIN bhp


As the Sprint engine was designed in this period, could it be that at first an SAE bhp figure of around 135 was attained, but at the time of introduction in ’73, the DIN bhp was the norm.

By interpolation, the original 135 SAE bhp of the Sprint could be calculated back to 127-128 DIN bhp. So same engine, but different bhp calculation and the name “135” could no longer be kept?


Just a thought

^^^^ That sounds like a very well reasoned argument to me.

Of course if engine power output was marketed / badged in the same way as the power output of cheap n nasty high street stereos, the Dolomite 135 would have actually been the Dolomite 1,000,000

Jod Clark wrote: ↑Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:55 am Of course if engine power output was marketed / badged in the same way as the power output of cheap n nasty high street stereos, the Dolomite 135 would have actually been the Dolomite 1,000,000