These two sports cars have broadly similar lines and proportions, a fact only accentuated by them both being painted in white. In part that can be explained by the fact they are both from 1955, but they also share quite a bit of DNA under those gorgeous skins, by no means enough to make them twins or even siblings, but certainly sufficient to qualify as cousins.
The Triumph TR2 will need little introduction, having been a regular fixture at both Triumph and general classic car events for many years. The TR2 was the car that enabled Triumph to grab a slice of the lucrative sports car cake in 1953, opening up the vast American market in the process. A genuine 100+mph car, it rode on a bespoke chassis and was powered by a 90bhp/1991cc version of Standard's wetliner four-cylinder engine that had first been seen in the Vanguard saloon. The simple yet seductive body was styled by Walter Belgrove, with a minimum of double-curvature to keep tooling costs as low as possible. 8636 were built between 1953 and 1955, although that total rockets to 83,656 if you include the very similar TR3, TR3A and TR3B that lasted until 1962.
The Swallow Doretti may well be less familiar to many readers, though the Swallow name might ring a few bells – it descended from the Swallow Coachbuilding Company founded by William Walmsley and William Lyons in 1927 (itself a descendant of their originalSidecar Company of 1922) which Lyons developed into Jaguar Cars. By the 1950s, the Swallow Coachbuilding Co Ltd of Walsall was unrelated to Jaguar and owned by a company called Helliwell, whose own parent company was Tube Investments.
