Triumph Vitesse: the Herald with a six-cylinder heart (1962–1971)

The Herald’s party trick was its bolt-together chassis; the Vitesse was the party. In 1962 Triumph slid a smooth, small straight-six, the first in the class, under the Herald’s famous tilting bonnet, canted four headlamps into a new face, and created Britain’s cheapest six-cylinder car and its cheapest six-pot convertible outright. The Triumph Vitesse spent nine busy years as the family’s gentleman hot rod, and it survives today as one of the friendliest, best-supported and most affordable six-cylinder classics that money anywhere finds.

A six under the tilting bonnet

The Vitesse recipe was pure Standard-Triumph pragmatism: the Herald’s separate chassis and Michelotti panels, the small saloon’s famous turning circle and tilt-front access, plus the 1596cc six derived from the big saloons, good for 70 smooth horsepower and a soundtrack the four-cylinder Spitfire never made. The slanted quad lamps announced the difference; saloon and convertible bodies carried it; and upgraded brakes and driveline handled the performance. Britain had nothing else so affordable with six cylinders, and knew it.

2-Litre power and the GT6 kinship

In 1966 the 1998cc six arrived, shared with the new GT6, lifting the Vitesse to 95 bhp and genuine 95 mph pace, with overdrive optional and popular. The car became the open-top or four-seat answer to the GT6’s coupe question, built on the same production lines from the same parts bins, which today makes the pair mechanical cousins with shared specialist support. The 2-Litre badge also sharpened the one criticism the chassis had been hiding.

Swing axles and the Mk2 cure

More power exposed the Herald-inherited swing-axle rear: hard cornering could tuck the outside wheel and swap the tail, and the road tests of the day made the reputation stick. Triumph’s 1968 Mk2 answered properly with a lower-wishbone rear end (shared with the GT6 Mk2), plus 104 bhp and interior polish, turning the Vitesse into the resolved sports saloon the badge had promised. The Mk2 is consequently the version the market chases, though modern dampers and sensible tyres civilise the earlier cars further than their legend admits.

The name and the family tree

Vitesse, French for speed, came from Triumph’s own 1930s catalogue, revived to crown the Herald family’s performance end. The badge sat below nothing and above everything small-chassis: the same underpinnings carried the Spitfire, the GT6 and the Bond Equipe glassfibre coupes, making Canley’s separate-chassis family one of the era’s great parts-bin ecosystems, a fact today’s owners exploit gratefully. When the Vitesse retired in 1971 the name rested until the SD1-era Rover revival borrowed it, but for the club world the word still means slanted headlamps and a six where a four should be.

What a Vitesse is like to drive

The Vitesse blend remains distinct: six-cylinder smoothness in a sub-tonne car, a gearchange and clutch among the lightest of the era, that comic turning circle, and open-top cruising at happy A-road pace with overdrive lengthening the legs. Mk2s corner with genuinely planted confidence; the earlier swing-axle cars simply ask smoother inputs and sensible modern tyres. Nothing about it intimidates, everything about it charms, and the tilt bonnet still gathers a crowd at every petrol stop, exactly as it did for the Herald family from the start. Overdrive cars are the touring picks; non-overdrive cars rev busier on motorways and matter less on the B-roads where the car belongs anyway.

Buying a Vitesse today

Chassis first, as with every separate-chassis Triumph of the Canley family: outriggers, main rails and body mounts rot quietly beneath presentable panels and are the purchase’s one real cost, with bolt-on panels making cosmetic rust misleading in both directions. Check doors-shut alignment for sag, floors and bulkheads for structure, and the six for oil pressure and quiet thrust washers, the engine’s known weakness: rock the crank pulley before buying. Trim between saloon and convertible differs enough to matter. The Triumph Sports Six Club’s registers and spares schemes make ownership straightforward, and project cars remain genuinely viable thanks to that chassis, which unbolts into manageable pieces the way no unitary rival ever will.

Values: six cylinders at four-cylinder money

At a measured median near £5,700 across 112 sales, the Vitesse still undercuts its own family: usable cars from £4,000, good saloons to £9,000, convertibles £8,000 to £14,000, the best beyond. That is Spitfire money for six-cylinder motoring and half a GT6 for most of its mechanical soul. Among 1960s open cars especially, the slant-eyed Triumph remains one of the market’s most complete bargains, and the clubs quietly know it.

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