All That The Name Implies - 1958 Peerless G.T. Two-Litre

To its owner, this 1958 Peerless G.T. Two-Litre is the perfect car

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from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

October, 2011 - Mark J. McCourt

Is it possible to desire exactly that to which you're not yet acquainted? Can something, like a car, be so right for you that you know it as soon as you see it? This 1958 Peerless G.T. Two-Litre represented love at first sight for Dan Rose, and it filled a niche that opened in his mind and heart the moment they crossed paths.

"I was in an art show in the mid-1990s, and a guy named Bo Dannenberger showed up with this Peerless, which I'd never heard of before. It was right-hand-drive, and it seemed so incredibly exotic. I was quite taken with it," he recalls.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, resident Dan spent years traveling regularly to Illinois--Dannenberger's home state--for business, and this rarely seen English Grand Tourer, only the 18th one to leave the factory, worked its way into his psyche.

"I got to know the man through the years, and I saw his car collection in 2007. I began working on him in earnest to get this automobile. It was parked in his garage, with laundry on the hood and folding chairs and boxes on its roof, sitting next to his current project, a Lancia," he continues. "He had all kinds of cars, Ferraris to Volvos, and a number of them were parked throughout the two-story livery stable he lived in; it was the world's most scattershot approach to collecting everything automotive that interested him. I was totally intrigued.

"I went out that August with a couple of bottles of wine. There was a place in the garage where we could sit, and he, his girlfriend, Gail, and I drank the wine," Dan says. "I told him how much I wanted to buy his Peerless. He regaled me with the story of how he came to buy it. In the mid-1970s, his 15-year-old son Sam had an Opel GT. He saw an ad for this Peerless in England, and contacted the seller, William Smith, who lived in Tuckaway Cottage in Blackburn. Smith agreed to sell his car to Sam, but Sam couldn't sell his Opel in time to pay for it. Bo took it on, saying, 'Well, it's my car now.' William Smith shipped the car to Baltimore, and Bo flew out and drove the car off of the ship, where he tore the muffler off. He drove back to Bloomington, Illinois, with all that exhaust noise. He'd had it ever since."

The square-jawed coupe buried in Bo's garage exhibited virtually all of its 50 years, as Dan took in its presence again. Chips and stress cracks marked the aged British Racing Green paint, and the body's fiberglass construction showed through in places. Like the outside, the interior--its black carpet threadbare in spots and the light gray leather seats and door panels worn down through the dye--was remarkably intact. It rested on dingy silver wire wheels, and although the car had traveled fewer than 50,000 miles from new, years of inactivity had rendered it inoperable.

But this car had a reputation for resilience. The advanced fiberglass body shunned dents and rust, while its 1,991cc four-cylinder engine was well proven in its first home, the Triumph TR3. As original, in the Peerless, the engine's 83 x 92mm bore and stroke, 8.5:1 compression ratio and twin SU H6 1¾-inch carburetors produced 100hp at 5,000 RPM and 117.5-lbs.ft. of torque at 3,000 RPM. Also sourced from Standard-Triumph was the TR3's sturdy four-speed gearbox, with the desirable optional Laycock overdrive that operated on second, third and top gears to offer seven forward speeds.

Also tough were the car's custom pieces, the components that set it apart from other low-priced GTs of the day. Instead of using a run-of-the-mill live rear axle, Peerless installed a sophisticated De Dion setup, combined with semi-elliptic leaf springs, which reduced unsprung weight. The differential was attached to the tubular steel space frame, which shielded a gas tank in each broad sill.

"Seeing it again in 2007, I became passionate about it," Dan recalls. "But Bo wouldn't sell it because it was really Sam's car. I never met Sam, but he and his father were both becoming interested in cars other than the Peerless. Sam found another car he wanted, and told me that if I'd pay him the purchase price of the other car, that would buy me the Peerless. So I did."

Dan had his trophy taken directly to Tipp City, Ohio, Triumph specialist Mark Macy, of Macy's Garage, to have it brought back to top mechanical condition. "Mark's probably the leading TR restorer in the country. He has been in Triumph clubs for years, and he knew the Peerless, but had never seen one. He recommissioned the entire car, from the radiator to the rear end, using correct original parts. When he got down into the car, he said it was in very good condition, that it didn't have a lot of miles...it was obvious that William Smith hadn't turned over the odometer a couple of times."

While the car's engine, transmission, suspension and brakes have all been rejuvenated, Dan chose to leave the cosmetics alone. "My plan is to preserve it--it's a time warp," he muses. "I've been approached by people who have restoration businesses and who want to restore it and sell it for me, but that's not my intent. People ask, 'Are you going to restore the body?' I say, 'Absolutely not!' I plan to not alter anything, now that Macy's Garage has got it running so well. There are special aspects of its originality, like the cast-aluminum grille that's often missing--it really adds so much to the car to have it.

"It has the factory leather on the inside, I don't know how you could do better than that. The seating is very comfortable, with semi-wraparound seat backs, and the front seats adjust far forward and back. You can position yourself in there easily. The back seat is even usable. It was designed as a four-seater, so a man could take his family to the race track, race the car, and drive them home again--that was the original idea behind the car. The car has this marvelous character to it, which makes it for me."

With the G.T. Two-Litre in fine fettle, Dan has been driving and enjoying it ever since. "It runs like a dream; it's just wonderful, and it's got a lot of spit. It offers the joys of driving a 1958 Triumph, and feels very much like the 1958 MGA I owned in the early 1960s. It's a true GT, and it behaves like one; it'll go over 100 MPH in comfort. I think GTs are generally ignored, but they offer the perfect blend--they're my favorite."

With its intriguingly unknown name, period-perfect looks and sinister stance on those black wire wheels, this right-hand-drive car gets a lot of attention. "It always draws a crowd. The people who don't know the car and haven't seen it before will often mistake it for another British car--they'll think it's an Aston Martin, from the overall shape.

"Still more fun is when car guys come up to the Peerless, guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of it, and yet this is the first time they've ever seen one. That's interesting, to put together their knowledge and their first acquaintance with the car. It's extremely satisfying, because they can tell you the whole history, about the design, what the issues were and how many were made. It's a lot of fun to meet those folks, because they have a lot of appreciation for something they haven't seen, but know a lot about."

So does the fact that 00018 is such an early car, and only one of a handful in America, make Dan hesitant to take it out? On the contrary: "Knowing it's so rare adds to the enjoyment," he smiles. "It has something a little bit south of patina, but it's exactly what I love. It looks the way I like it to look because it shows it's aged, and it does what it's supposed to do because it's mechanically perfect. It's just my kind of car--offbeat, small run, pleasant to look at, a hoot to drive. It had all of the ingredients you'd look for in a late 1950s car from England."



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