Later it was successfully used in Standard's popular early generation Triumph TR series sports cars.

The water-cooled overhead valve engine featured novel advances for an immediate post-war design, which included thin-wall bearings with replaceable shells and loose-fitted wet liners.

Conventional overhead valves were driven from a camshaft mounted in the side of the cylinder block via vertical pushrods and adjustable rockers.

Particularly with the advanced grinding techniques necessary to make such a thin-walled tube with good concentricity and surface finish, other manufacturers saw them as over-complex.

Another distinctive, although less revolutionary, feature of the engine was the location of the tubes carrying the valve pushrods.

The top and bottom faces of the cylinder head were extended to form a flange on the camshaft side of the engine with individual steel tubes placed through the flanges to enclose each pushrod (a similar system was used for the Volkswagen Beetle engine, albeit with longer tubes the entire length of the cylinder).

[3][4] TVO has a low octane rating of around 60 and so the engine had the usual changes to compression ratio and ignition timing.

A heat shield around the manifolds increased the inlet temperature, encouraging vapourisation of the fuel.

To avoid problems with fuel condensation in the inlet ports, diameter of the valves (in some engine versions) was also reduced, thus increasing flow velocity.

In 1954 this engine also found its way into the Phase II Vanguard, making this Britain's first production diesel car.

Compression ratio remained the same at 6:1 but the valve and ignition timing were changed to suit road driving conditions and a more predictable quality of petrol.

[10] The Phase III version of the Vanguard, introduced in 1955, had a compression ratio of 7.5:1 but the power output remained at 68 hp (51 kW).

The Sportsman was a high-performance version made in 1956 and 1957 with two SU carburettors and a compression ratio of 8:1, yielding 90 hp (67 kW) at 4500 rpm.

The engine in the original Ensign had its cylinders sleeved to 76 mm, giving a capacity of 1670 cc and a power output of 60 hp (45 kW) at 4000 rpm.

In 1962 this was replaced by an uprated Ensign with an 86 mm bore, giving a capacity of 2138 cc and a power output of 75 hp (56 kW) at 4100 rpm.

When it was introduced in 1986, the engine was modified with Heron combustion chamber, twin SU carburetors and a redesigned inlet manifold.

Others included sports car maker Peerless, which was later reorganized as Warwick, and Swallow Coachbuilding, who used the engine in their Doretti.