The recommendation was accepted and development began in-house at Triumph by a design team led by Dawtrey and Harry Webster.

[5] Saab retained its existing transaxle, which was configured to be driven from the front of the engine.

[6]: 47, 48  A consequence of this is that the "front"-mounted water pump would be facing the firewall/bulkhead and be inaccessible, prompting it to be relocated to the top of the cylinder block.

The V8 member of the engine family first appeared in a Triumph vehicle in 1970, fully two years before the slant-four.

Development of the V8 had continued throughout the mid- to late-1960s, with early engines displacing 2.5 L. When Charles Spencer (Spen) King took over as Head of Engineering from Webster, he authorized continued development of the Triumph V8, and was also instrumental in getting the car it powered, the Triumph Stag, into production.

The eight valves, two per cylinder, were inline and were operated on by the camshaft through bucket tappets with shims for adjustment.

However according to Matthew Vale,[6] it was during development that Triumph switched to measuring power from imperial (SAE) to metric (DIN), which calculated outputs approximately 5% lower.

The 16-valve 2.0 L engine was also used in a small number of prototype and pre-production TR7 Sprints built at Triumph's plant in Speke during 1977.

[13] In 1972 Saab brought production of the 1.85 L slant-four in-house to their Scania division at a facility in Södertälje.

An uncorroborated letter to the editor of Motor Sport magazine references a Saab press release of July 1970 that indicates that this was planned from the outset.

Displacement increased to 2.0 L, but the bore diameter was 0.3 mm (0.012 in) smaller than the enlarged Triumph version, resulting in a swept volume of 1,985 cc (121.1 cu in).

Saab's B engine shared much with the original Triumph design, including bore centres and bearings, but some previously problematic features, such as the water-pump and its seal, were redesigned.

At the Lombard RAC Rally the Dolomite Sprint won the 2-litre class and Group 1 outright and placed 16th overall.

The private Broadspeed team headed by Ralph Broad did extensive development on the Sprint engine, bringing power up to a claimed 174 bhp (129.8 kW).