Triumph Sports Cars

G'day all,

I'm at the stage in myTR7v8 build where I have to do some surgery on the body. I've done all of the structural reinforcing and rust/rot replacement on the non-visible body parts. Shortly I will start on getting the shell ready for paint. So, if I'm going to be doing panel work anyhow, I thought, why not fender arches?

I'm aware of the wide and narrow rally flares that are available from the UK, and the Group 44 kit in the USA. I'm not too fond of the rally arches for simple street use and can't afford the gorgeous Lanocha Group44 kit. So, I was wondering what other TR7/8 owners in USA and Canada had done for "do-it-yourself" type wheel flares or if any of the universal wheel arch flare kits as sold by various vendors on ebay etc, might work.

I know the MGB crowd use VW Rabbit/Golf repair panels. Wonder if they might work for us too. Thoughts anyone?

Martin

Here are some things to consider. The TR7 raced by Group 44 & Huffaker Engineering in the early stages would round out the flares, Huffaker and Group 44 would cut the stock fender lip all the way around except at the very bottoms and them extend the top out and fill in the void with fiberglass. Huffaker was more in your face obvious but Group 44 was more subtle.

Here are the Huffaker early flares on the TR7


This is the later flares by Huffaker that are more of a complete panel replacement


This is a street car done back in 90ies with Huffaker fenders.


This is the Group 44 TR7

If you roll the lips under and then use a sledge to gradually push the lips outward, you can gain a couple of inches of wheel clearance. I run 225-16s, on my TR8 but have had 245s on the car without an issue. If you install flares and then don't fill the flare with tire, it's going to look bad. I have huge flares on my BMW 2002, and when the shop rollers are on it, it look ridiculously inadequate.