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TR-250.com 
Driver's Log
TR-250.com Driver's Log
Entry #13 -- On the road again (April 22, 2007)
With Greenie safely rescued from eBay or life as a Mitchelotti-bodied planter, it was time to get the driving season under way! I was so pleased with how the Greenster had acquitted himself after waking from his hibernal slumber, I didn't bother with a major Spring tinker. Yes, inquisitive readers, I checked his oil, and kept a watchful eye on his other vital fluids, but otherwise I left well enough alone. The temptation was great to start gap-adjusting, brake bleeding, oil-changing and general futzing, but why tempt the Fates? The old boy was running just fine thank you very much. All he really longed for was a Vernal shake-down cruise.
As luck would have it, the local Triumph cabal -- the Capital Triumph Register -- had scheduled it annual run along the entire length of the George Washington Parkway a mere three days after I retrieved the li'l roadster. The appointed day dawned cloudless, bright, sunny and warm. Flowers bloomed, trees budded, birds sang, insects stretched their wings and filled the air with their buzz. Creation seemed renewed, clean and fresh. So we eagerly decided to sully the entire scene by operating a motor vehicle with equipped with no environmental protection systems. Even better, we decided to proceed thusly in an entire group. Move it into the slow lane, Momma Nature, I'm comin' through full-throttle.
With my beloved girlfriend by my side, and Car Talk on the radio, we set off in Greenie, and met up with a small gathering of seven other Triumph roadsters -- two TR-6s, two TR-4As, two Spits, and another green TR-250 (owned by my friend and long-time 250 owner R.J.). Oddly enough, only green and white cars were represented. Where were the blue cars? The red ones? The wretchedly period brown TR-6s? All still resting in their respective garages, apparently.
In any event, Greenie ate up mile after mile without the slightest hiccup (and was even treated to a high-speed run on the Beltway). We enjoyed excellent company, a hearty meal and let the Green Machine stretch his proverbial legs. Thanks to Paul Scuderi for organizing such a great event!
Entry #12 -- Free at last (April 19, 2007)
The Greenster had passed the winter of 2006-2007 safely ensconced in my friend Ben's garage. I say Ben's garage, but in truth, the garage belongs to Ben's better half, Edie. Or perhaps he owns it, but she has some form of permanent easement. Or a springing future reversionary interest. No matter. The point is that Ben and Edie have a beautiful garden, and it is largely the result of Edie's vision and elbow grease. Their garage has been aptly described as the staging area for all of Edie's garden projects, and though Spring arrived more than fashionably late this year, emails began appearing from Ben as the month wore on, admonishing me to retrieve the Triumph. At first, said emails were mild and polite:
It's probably time for you to collect Greenie.
The weather, however, continued to threaten rain, snow, sleet, the next ice age, the advance of mighty glaciers. And I had to prepare my newly acquired garage (that I think perhaps also came with a house -- I'll have to look into that) was not yet ready for Greenie's occupancy. So, I politely avoided the subject of Greenie collection, and allowed his hibernation to continue. The emails continued, however, and their tone became slightly more urgent:
You had better come retrieve Greenie, lest Edie use him as a planter.
Though the message was unequivocal, I reckoned that the threat level had not yet reached DEVCON 5. In any event, Greenie's new home was still not ready. So, master of avoidance and procrastination that I am, I continued to avoid and procrastinate. The little Triumph's slumber continued, and I was confident that he would remain undisturbed. Planter indeed.
And then the definitive eviction notice arrived:
If you don't come and get Greenie, the next time you will see him will be on eBay.
Now *that* was clear, unequivocal and sufficiently menacing to cause my aforementioned "avoid and procrastinate" strategy to be replaced by a slightly more proactive "get my buttocks down to Ben and Edie's to rescue my car like yesterday, man" strategy. I immediately grabbed a quart of oil, a couple of shop rags and Greenie's hip Ben Sherman Carnaby Street Mod ringer keys, hopped onto my Trek mountain bike and peddled the arduous eight-tenths of a mile to chez Ben et Edie. Nestled in their garage, cozy in his cover sat my beloved Greenie, oily rags ingloriously stuffed up his exhaust pipes to discourage the nesting of small rodents.
I popped the bonnet, checked the Greenie's oil, brake fluid, clutch fluid and coolant, satisfied myself that he remained generally intact, and turned on his battery. I yanked the choke, turned the key. He turned over. Then, as if saying "you think that was my first winter in storage, mate? I'm bloody well as old as you are," he caught on the third try, and burbled smugly. Hail Britannia. And hail Store-N-Start. Mighty good stuff, that.
Leaving my mountain bike behind in the hallowed ground previously occupied (and now generously oil-stained) by Greenie, I backed the old roadster out of Ben and Edie's garage, and took a route home that was slightly longer than eight-tenths of a mile. I was reunited with my beloved Greenie, and looked forward to the driving season with great enthusiasm.
On a side note, that Trek mountain bike on
eBay looks kinda familiar...
Entry #11 -- Fast Forward (April 2007)
Well, loyal readers, let us fast forward from August 26, 2005 to the present. I'll admit it. My grand design to chronicle my life with Greenie on a periodic basis -- assuming that by "periodic" I meant perhaps something a bit more frequent than every twenty months or so -- failed to materialize. But, to evoke Douglas Adams, reality is somewhat flawed.
How does one go about summarizing twenty months of Herculean effort devoted to keeping a 39 year old product of ailing British industry from succumbing to the Universal Principle of Entropy? I shall, for the time being, cast aside witticisms and double-entendres and simply produce a list. To be more precise, a simple list of all that has gone in to keeping the green machine on the road. In short, Greenie’s veritable Domesday Book of Repairs and Replacement Parts (in approximate chronological order).
Trunk handle
Glove box lock
Sun Visor brackets
Hazard switch
PDWA
Heater valve
Heater hoses
Radiator hoses
Clutch
Throw-out bearing
Tires
Fuel pump
Starter motor
Sun visors
Brake disks
Front brake cylinders
Front brake hoses
Rear brake cylinders
Brake pads and shoes
Brake master cylinder
Brake servo
Radiator overflow bottle and hose
Windshield washer bottle bracket
PCV valve and hoses
Tonneau
Transmission
Right rear shock absorber
Gear shift knob
Coil
Rotor
Distributor cap
Condenser
Alternator
Thermostat
Radio and speakers
Under-dash “kidney” panels
Alternator
Alternator
Voltage regulator
Oh, and along the way I managed to acquire another six very nice ROstyle
hubcaps. I do love me some ROstyle hubcaps.
But back to the narrative. Over the
last twenty months, I covered several hundred pleasure-filled miles in Greenie.
Top down on warm days and
cold. Empty country lanes and gridlocked urban
rush hour. Radio blaring classic 1960s rock. Radio off enjoying his
burbling Strebo exhaust. Sunny days with his bonnet up and my bum hanging
out. My first car show all by my lonesome. Over the last twenty months, I quite simply became addicted to
Greenie. The smell of exhaust, fuel, oil, aging interior panels. The
tight rack and pinion steering, the torque of his in-line six, the short-throw
shifter, the ridiculously delightful clutch.
And through all of those joyous miles, the
old boy left me on the side of the road but once. On one lovely cool late
summer evening, not a mile from home, Greenie's rotor decided that it had had
enough, and would no longer deliver electric charge to his spark plugs from the
whirling chaos of his distributor. No, the wee device determined to hang
up its proverbial spurs and finally
embark on that permanent vacation promised
to all fiddly bits wrought from the very darkness itself by Dr. Lucas' minions.
Luck being a lady that night, a hitherto unknown neighbor happened upon me,
explained that he had known many a British roadster (though he recently had
fallen from grace and acquired an old Alpha), and offered to give me a ride home
*and* back to Greenie again, should I have the needed spare part. Well, I
did have the needed spare, and once returned to the side of my little roadster,
effected repairs in situ. The aforementioned Principle of Entropy had
descended upon us, and armed with nothing but a spanner and a screw driver, I
had engaged the dread goddess and fended her off.
Ok, so all I really did was pop off the old rotor and stick in the new one, and after about ten seconds I was on my way again. But that doesn't sound nearly as heroic as the preceding paragraph. Nor does it really capture the point. Which was, if I recall correctly, that Greenie only stranded me once (he wrote vigorously knocking on various proximate wood surfaces), and even that once, he returned home proudly under his own power.
That'll do, car. That'll do.
Entry #10 -- Let it Rain (August 26, 2005)
With fond farewells, I hopped in Greenie and
motored back to the bed and breakfast. This was it. I had my TR-250. Ahead of me
lay nothing but open road. The rush of the wind in my hair (or should I say
what’s *left* of my hair), the intoxicating burble of the Strebo exhaust, the
adrenaline-inducing pull of low-end torque, the exhilaration of downshifting
through curvy country roads. And, as it would turn out, the thrill of 37-year
old mechanical components that had not been tended to in, well, 37 years. An
electrical system designed by the dark minions of Dr. Lucas. And the unbridled
pleasure of enriching our old friends at Moss, The Roadster Factory, and
Victoria British. Hell, I guess their kids have to go to college too.
All of that, however, lay in the future. For now, I simply soaked in the
sensations of driving Greenie along rural Pennsylvania by-ways as the sun set.
Since he and I were still strangers, I was gentle – I had spent enough time
around old cars to know that much uncertainty and misfortune can lurk in the
nooks and crannies of an otherwise shiny beast. So, I didn’t push my new friend
too hard. With Lucas headlamps ablaze, I pulled into
the parking lot of the B&B,
parked Greenie a suitable distance from every other vehicle and settled in for
the evening. I lit a fire in the fireplace – though it was late August, we
Vermonters simply cannot resist lighting a fire when a fireplace presents itself
– and snuggled in with the Bentley manual and my Pennsylvania atlas. Before
long, I had drifted off to sleep, my dreams filled with the rumbling of a 2.5
liter in-line six.
I awoke early, almost bouncing with excitement. Today, Greenie would come home,
and meet my boys. At the same time, however, I approached the day with a degree
of trepidation. I was about to put 200 miles on a tiny antique car that was
totally unknown to me. How the day would end, I knew not. But every journey
begins with one step – or one revolution of a tyre – so after a quick breakfast
and a hearty cup of coffee, I climbed behind Greenie’s wheel, fired him up, and
hit the road.
The days leading up to this exciting moment had been picture-perfect. Sunny, no
humidity, cooler than average for late August, brilliant blue skies. And yet
this morning, the clouds had rolled in. An early shower had already moved
through, but the clouds were beginning to break and misty rays of sunlight
occasionally burst through. I took heart, convinced myself that it would clear,
and set off on the route I had planned. My desire was to avoid the interstates
as much as possible, given that I didn’t want to push Greenie too hard, or have
to pull over on the shoulder of the interstate if some misfortune befell me.
Wary of the weather, however, I kept Greenie’s top up, but cranked down the
windows. I was certain that after a few miles, I'd be reaching for my
sunglasses and putting the top down.
Or not. About twenty miles or so from
the bed and breakfast, the clouds thickened, and the skies opened up. Rain
began to fall. Not mild sweet summer
let's-go-for-a-walk-maybe-we'll-see-a-rainbow rain. No no. This was
serious
gather-the-animals-two-by-two-and-figure-out-what-the-heck's-a-cubit-'cause-we-gotta-start-on-the-ark
rain. And here I was, behind the seat of an aging car with teeny-weeny
windshield wipers,
ancient
tyres, and no safety features in a torrential downpour. But surely rain
like that can't last. Surely not. But yes, loyal readers, it
actually can. It can last, and last, and last for every freakin' inch of a
200 mile journey home.
But Greenie proved he was up to the challenge. True, his windscreen fogged up (due to the fact that it would take me a year to figure out the blower settings and not due to any fault of the car) and some of his firewall grommets had deteriorated and let in a bit of moisture onto my legs and feet. But overall, the old chap took it in stride. His Clear Hooters (hehehehe, I said "hooters") wiper switch held together, the wipers performed perfectly, and the car was remarkably solid on soaked roads. He was, after all, born and bred in England, and he wasn't going to let unrelenting rain get the best of him. The journey did, however, take all day. Though I became more familiar with Greenie with each passing mile, I was reluctant to push him until I had really had the chance to go over him inside and out. Slow and steady was the order of the day. After about seven hours, I pulled into my driveway, weary and damp. It took a few glasses of wine to take the edge off the day, but I was absolutely delighted. After all of the years of yearning, I finally had my TR-250.
Of course, the next day, and the next several
weeks, would be perfectly sunny. And so began my life with Greenie. 
Entry #9 -- Meet Greenie (August 25, 2005)
The time had come. I was going to meet Greenie. We agreed to meet Jack and Jill on Friday, August 26, 2005. I made all necessary preparations for a trip of this nature. I stocked up on motor oil. I ordered a complete set of hoses. I packed duct tape. A whole bunch of wrenches. Last but not least, I grabbed my checkbook and AAA card and headed North.
It had been a very long time since I had been on an interstate in Pennsylvania. Let me tell you something about the Pennsylvania highway system. It is where truck tires go to die. And when I say die, I really mean having their treads violently ripped apart and strewn across the middle of the highway. Every twenty to thirty feet or so, for miles on end. Navigating these highways is like being a stunt driver in a Mercedes all-wheel drive commercial. You know the one. A concerned and intent parent with distinguished crows' feet wrinkles -- a mix between middle-aged Martin Sheen and Pierce Brosnan -- hurls his luxo-mobile around hazard after hazard, while his cherubic child dozes nonchalantly in the back seat. That was me. Except with more swearing.
I bonded with Jack and Jill from the moment I met them. And, as previously indicated, it was clear that this was not going to be a mere car purchase. I was being screened to see if we were worthy to adopt Greenie. Jill in particular was quite pleased that I had already named her baby. However, there was some essential business to be done. Jack pulled Greenie out of the garage and I got down on my knees and started running my hands under Greenie's sills and inside his fenders, looking for the dreaded tin worm, like an over-eager doctor looking for an elusive hernia. Though I had risk tetanus more than once poking my hands under a Triumph's bodywork, I was most pleased to find that Greenie was as solid as he looked. I took the obligatory test drive around Jack and Jill's neighborhood, and the car pulled strong. Greenie's electrics were in fine condition, and he even boasted an original set of fully functional Clear Hooters washer and wiper switches. Note that I resisted the temptation to exclaim "nice Hooters!" That would just be beneath me. Ok, it wouldn't be, but I'm trying to keep this family-friendly. And to convince my readers that I'm clever.
Hooters aside, I rapidly came to the
conclusion that I had found my Triumph, and sealed the deal. We shook hands,
I handed over my check and sat and chatted for a while. Looking back, those
fleeting moments spent at Jack and Jill's dining room table, overlooking the
mountains of central Pennsylvania, were important for both sides of the
transaction. For Jack and Jill -- Jill in particular -- it was the end of an
era, and they required the time to get used to letting go of their treasure.
For me, it was preparation for being the loving parent of a 2100 pound, 37 year
old baby. A very *needy* 2100 pound, 37 year old baby. 
It was a quiet Friday in June when an email arrived in my inbox. Little did I know that the email would change my life (and become a delightful and beloved drain on my bank account) forever. Ok, so perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but not terribly far from the truth! With edits to protect the innocent, it went something like this:
Hi! I have a 68 TR250 that my wife and I decided to sell. We bought the car from a friend who did a body off restoration in 1986. We used to show the car. Now it gets driven less than 200 miles a year. The car is Triumph Racing Green with the silver stripe on the hood, has Rostyle hubcaps, and everything is original except we don't have yellow striped hoses and it has a Strebo dual exhaust.
This simple email would start a chain of events that eventually led me to my Triumph. It arrived on my Blackberry when I was driving to work, and rather than waiting for a red light or pulling over on the side of the road, I immediately dashed off a reply, and probably caused a multi-car pile-up in the process. I didn't care. This was a promising lead, and I wasn't going to wait one second longer than I had to in responding.
The author of this email -- we'll call him Jack -- and I started a correspondence that would last for two months. Within a couple of days, Jack and his wife -- we'll call her Jill -- sent me a collection of photographs of the car. I remember receiving them at the office, and forwarding them to my girlfriend at the time (grumble, grumble grumble) with a simple message:
This could be the one.
The photographs showed a Triumph Racing Green TR-250 in good condition. No obvious rust, a presentable but well-used interior, and all of its bits and pieces where they should be. The car obviously needed a bath, and the cracks in the dashboard and crash pads demonstrated that the machine had spent a fair amount of time with the top down on sunny days. Although not included in any of the photos, Jack indicated that he had two complete sets of ROstyle hubcaps. I coined the name Greenie, and it stuck.
Greenie lived about 200 miles away, but
Jack and Jill didn't want me to come and see the car until they replaced a leaky
water pump. I took an instant liking to Jack and Jill. They
obviously loved the car, as demonstrated in the fact that they didn't want to
introduce it to me until it was in top form. It took almost a month and a
half for the water pump to arrive, and as soon as it was installed, Jack offered
to take the car to a local garage, put it on a lift, and take copious photos of
the undercarriage to demonstrate that Greenie was as solid as a rock. The
photographs arrived and confirmed their description of the car. Solid
floors, sills, frame -- everything looked as it should, at least in the photos.
It gradually became clear that Greenie really belonged to Jill. It also
became clear that this wasn't the mere purchase of an automobile. This was
an adoption. And not some black market Angelina Jolie pay off the
parents adoption. Greenie was Jill's baby, and she wanted the car to go to
a person who would love it as she did. A person with solid English sports
car credentials and the tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects. In
other words, person just like me.
Entry #7 – How to find a Triumph (redux).
With my 6-Pack post drawing as much
attention as a WB sitcom, I pondered other alternatives. The next logical
choice was the classified ad page maintained by the Vintage Triumph Register. I
have to admit that I like the VTR website. I really dig the little slideshow of
various Triumph motorcars featured on the club’s main page, and I’m a sucker for
the little twinkle of chrome that flashes from each vehicle. Oooo! Shiny!
As an aside, it may come as a shock to the casual reader that there is a tiny
bit of competition among the single-marque car clubs. To say that this
competition can sometimes be spirited and emotional would be akin to describing
the Arab-Israeli conflict as a friendly and cheerful debate among adoring
neighbors. It gets ugly, people. How ugly? I believe the International War
Crimes Tribunal is still investigating the alleged use of nerve agents by the
Austin Healey Club USA against the Austin Healey Club of America.
Ironically, most of this kvetching takes place between clubs specializing in the
same cars. True, there was the famous dawn raid launched by the Jaguar
Association of New England against the unsuspecting New England MG T Register,
but that is widely attributed to a long-standing struggle to control
prostitution and gambling in Providence and Boston. And the fact that the Jag
people were just @$#%ing tired of hearing about Cecil
Kimber. I mean come on! My father and I once went on an extended caravan in
England in a 1952 MG TD with a hundred or so other MG T series cars. In every
village, it was “Cecil Kimber lived in that house” or “Cecil Kimber used to eat
at that restaurant” or “Cicil Kimber deflowered a local virgin in that car
park.” Give it a rest, you people!
But I digress. I went ahead and
placed a wanted ad in the VTR classifieds. At that very moment, as Fate
would have it, a delightful couple some 200 miles away decided to sell their
beloved TR-250, and logged on to the VTR site to place a classified ad of their
very own. Before they did so, they read mine. Fortune smiled, the
stars aligned, and they sent me an email.
Entry #6 -- Karmann Temptation
My search dragged on for several months and, I must admit, I became weak. I knew I wanted a great TR-250, but I also wanted to win the lottery, and sometimes we don’t get what we want. However, the Stones remind us that we just might find we get what we need. Yes, I wanted a TR-250, but what I needed was a Triumph roadster. I knew that I could be perfectly happy with a TR-6. Plus, there are many to be had. At any given time, there can be as many as two or three in the local newspaper, and literally dozens in Hemmings and eBay. So, in mid-summer, while continuing my search for a 250, I started casually flirting with TR-6s.
I saw two local cars during this frolic and detour. Both were 1971 machines – one with overdrive, and one without. The one with overdrive lived about fifty miles away – certainly an easy drive in most urban areas, but since the car lived south of the famed Springfield Mixing Bowl, it took me three hours to drive down and see the car. When we reached our destination, I was greeted by a car with a fresh repaint and, underneath, some very troubling rust in the sills that the owner didn’t know was there. The overdrive was snappy, and would have been a nice goodie, but I didn’t want to deal with the tin worm. This trip was, however, a milestone. It was the very first Triumph I saw on my quest, and the first one I test drove. And, loyal readers, I must admit that it was the first Triumph I had ever driven. Yes, I had ridden shotgun in my miscreant friend’s GT-6 many times, but the bastard never let me behind the wheel. And you always remember your first time (yes, I know I've used that joke already -- gimme a break).
Soon thereafter, I drove the second car. It had the advantage of living around the corner, had been in the same family from new, and was completely unmolested. It also wasn’t terribly well cared-for. I don’t mean to imply that it had been abused. It hadn’t. No rust, no evidence of accidents. It just hadn’t received a lot of TLC. It would have been a great platform for an easy restoration, but I wanted something I could enjoy and maintain, not something to pull apart and rebuild. Perhaps someday, but not now.
It was around this time that my friends held an
intervention. Not for the booze, rock and roll or the constant womanizing.
Nah, my friends find all of that mildly amusing. Rather, my tender and
caring friends asked me if I in fact wanted a TR-6, or whether I truly
desired a TR-250. Well, given that this is TR-250.com, we all benefit from
hindsight now, don’t we? So, I abandoned my flirtation with the TR-6, and
redoubled my efforts to find a TR-250.
Entry #5 – How to find a Triumph.
So how did I go about finding our TR-250? The first step was to decide what kind of car I wanted. Having grown up in the household of a restorer, my first inclination in these matters is to search for a trailer queen. I quickly dispensed with these notions, however. I wanted a car to drive, now to show. The Big Healey that my father and I restored together was a concours car, and in truth, I'm basically scared to drive it. Don't get me wrong -- I love my Big Healey, but my teeth are clenched so tight when I'm behind the wheel that even a short Sunday drive requires a follow-up trip to the dentist. So, in order to preserve my teeth and perhaps my circulatory system, I decided to get a nice driver I could actually operate on the open road without freaking out.
I started the search in my beloved Hemmings,
but TR-250 ads proved elusive as ever. I therefore turned to Cyberspace
and the various websites and lists to search for our TR-250. I figured
that the Internet had proven such a valuable font for porn and gambling, surely
I could use it to find car. 6-Pack, the
club dedicated to the TR-6 (and when they think to mention it, the TR-250), maintains a great website, and I put
up a post advertising our search for a great TR-250 driver. However, my
post joined one of multitude of others on the same topic. It stood out
like a single mackerel in a bait ball, and nobody was
a-bitin'.
Entry #4 – Let the search begin.
Let’s fast-forward some seventeen years. For any number of reasons, I never acquired a Triumph. Not for the lack of wanting. After graduating from law school, I kept a continuous subscription to Hemmings Motor News. I even had my little Hemmings ritual. First, I donned my ceremonial Union Jack-emblazoned robes, sang “God Save the Queen” and then I would open the tome. My next step would be to skim the Healeys, for the sole purpose of charting BJ8 prices. Thereafter, I would peruse the Jaguar section to get a feeling for the XK-120 market for my father. With these rites satisfied, I would then settle down to the serious work of parsing through the Triumph listings. At times I grew frustrated with the dearth of 250s and flirted with selecting a TR-6 from the vast number available. Giovanni Michelotti was a genius, but them boys at Karmann knew how to draw up a fine lookin' car too. But in the end, I remained strong and continued to search for my 250. This is how it went for a very long time. I got married. I had kids. I made partner. I flipped through Hemmings. I never bought a TR-250.
Then, lo and behold, I found myself single again. Yes, the end of a marriage is a sad, sad thing. Let us pause for a second to think of the hardship, the emotional rollercoaster, the need to be strong for your kids, and the adjustment to being a bachelor. *sigh*
Wait a second there. What was that last
part again? Did you say "being a bachelor?" Let's just ponder that
one for a wee bit, buckos. Last time I was single I was an immature, 25
year old law student with no cash. Fast-forward a few years (ok, a decade,
but who's counting?). Now, I'm an immature 37 year old law firm partner
with a regular salary and NOBODY TO TELL ME HOW TO SPEND THAT SALARY OR WHAT TO
DO WITH MY TIME (emphasis added for, well, emphasis). You
dig? Yeah, sure, I don't want to make light of the whole end of marriage
thing. I am, after all, a sweet, sensitive guy. Just ask around.
Really. But now, gents, I had absolutely nothing to prevent me from
fulfilling that long-held dream of becoming a Triumph man.
So, the search for my
very own TR-250 began in earnest. Now, where'd I put that freakin'
Hemmings?
Though I may have been bitten by the Triumph
bug, life had other distractions that, well, distracted me. Off I went to
college, and spent the better part of four years drinking beer and chasing
girls. In all fairness, I also drank beer and chased girls. And lest you think I
didn’t make the most of my college education, I also spent some rewarding,
enriching times spent drinking beer and chasing girls. That kind of schedule
left little time for English sports cars, though I did spend my vacations
working on the restoration of my 1965 Austin Healey 3000 Mk. III (more on that
later). Though I would occasionally hatch a plot for flying to England and
shipping a TR5 back home, I filed away my Triumph desire somewhere behind the
portions of my brain dedicated to drinking beer and chasing girls, and went back
to the business of, er, well, drinking beer and chasing girls.
All that changed in 1988. In August of that year, my fraternity finally managed
to afford a great house, and being social chairman (see above comments re: beer
and girls), I moved in to a spacious room on the third floor. Although a room in
the attic may evoke visions of Greg Brady’s bead-door garret, it was a pretty
cool layout. It also had some amazing closet space, which may not in any way
seem relevant to this story, but hold your hats, I’m getting there. While
cleaning out one of those closets, I found a hard-bound book entitled
The New Complete Book of Collectible Cars, 1930-1980. This
dusty tome, left behind by some forgotten owner, was by no means in-depth, but it was
fun to flip through the pages and read a couple of paragraphs on just about
every major model of automobile produced since 1930. As I regarded myself an
expert on English iron, I recall sitting down and flipping through the pages for
the first time, and identifying the models of English cars by sight.
“Healey 100, 100-6, 3000 Mk I, II and
III, Sprite,” I read to myself as I started with the Healeys.
“120, 140, 150, E-type series 1, 2
and 3,” went the Jaguars.
“Elite”, “Elan,” “Europa” I mumbled
as I ploughed through the Lotuses.
“MGTC, TD, TF, MGA, B, C, Midget” as
I sorted through the MGs.
“Alpine, Tiger,” came the Sunbeams.
I was cruising, and hadn’t failed to identify a single vehicle. By now I had
become cocky, and entered the Triumphs with the emotional equivalent of a
swagger.
“TR2, 3, 3A, 4, 4A, 4A with some
weird stripe on the bonnet, 6, 7, 8, Spitfire, GT6, Stag. Darn I’m good! On to
the TVRs!”
But before I could move on, my brain came to a full stop. “4A with some weird
nose stripe on the bonnet?” I said aloud. “Where the heck did that come from?” I
flipped back through the pages to the photograph in question. My gaze dropped to the title.
“TR-250?” I read on with interest.
U.S.-market version of the TR5. Dual Strombergs instead of Lucas PI. Gorgeous
lines of a Michelotti Triumph with the smooth six that became the heart of the
TR6. Sassy, sassy bonnet stripe to distinguish it from its four-cylinder
cousins. Oh YEAH!
“TR-250,” I repeated, this time like
I meant it. That’s right, baby. TR-250. Come to daddy. That was it. My prayers
had been answered and my sights were set on owning a TR-250. It was, in my book,
the ultimate Triumph. It had all the elements I loved about Triumphs, and was
uncommon to boot. That appealed to my unconventional streak. My desire to always
be a bit different. To buck convention. To wear a jacket made from English flags
because Pete Townshend had one. Ok, that’s another story.
In any event, I had found my perfect Triumph. The English car gods, fickle
beings though they may be, had parted the fog and sent a ray of glorious
sunlight upon me. I knew there would be challenges involved in finding a car
that was made for one year, in absurdly low numbers, but my fate had been
sealed. (The book was wrong about a couple of things, including some B.S. about
a fake wood dash.)
To this day, I remain baffled over how the existence of the TR-250 had escaped
me, a thorough devotee of the British motor industry. All I can fathom is that I
had spent too much time reading British car magazines, where an export market
car would have received scant, if any, attention. That, and I blame it on the
parents. Sure, I could spot the difference between an XK-120 and an XK-140 at
fifty paces, and recite from memory when Healey abandoned triple carburetors,
but my Triumph education had been woefully neglected. What is our society coming
to, I ask you?
Entry #2. You always remember your first time .
As a teenager, I had seen them in magazines. Glossy magazines with dizzying photographs of beautiful, shapely forms. I can remember in high school staying up late, gazing at those magazines, mouth agape, salivating over the pages. Fantasizing about the first time I could touch those shapes with my own hands.
Yes, loyal readers, the images in the pages of great English periodicals such as "Thoroughbred and Classic Cars" and "Classic and Sports Car" captivated my attention, and revealed to me a world of English cars beyond my father's XK and the mysterious stories of my mother's Big Healey. Ever the English car nut, my father was kind enough to oblige my budding interest in Anglo iron by subscribing to these great rags. It was in these magazines that I first became acquainted with the other English sports cars manufactured in Coventry -- Triumph. I prided myself as a purist, so naturally I was drawn to the side curtain-equipped TR-2s and TR-3s. I also respected the TR-6, which I vaguely recalled from my youth (though mostly through television ads during *M*A*S*H*). But what really caught my eye was the Michelotti-designed roadster. What an outrageous mixture of design elements that combined to capture more than any other car I could imagine -- other than, perhaps, the Jaguar E-Type -- the essence of the 1960s European sports car. The aggressive point of the overhanging bonnet. The long, sweeping line of the front fenders, carried over the tops of the doors to a point almost two-thirds of the way towards the car's tail end. The rear fender line ending in pronounced fins, flanking the curvaceous trunk. And let's not forget the rounded bulges in the hood for the headlights. The crowning, captivating stroke of genius that became the signature for Michelotti's Triumphs. The TR-4. The TR-4A. If only they had six-cylinder engines. I know some of the great English sports cars had four cylinder engines, but a six was where it was at.
"If only," I thought, "Triumph had put one of its smooth small-displacement in-line sixes in a Michelotti body." Jeez, what a shame. And yet, those great English car magazines held a surprise for me. Hey! What's this? A TR-5, you say? W-i-c-k-e-d!
And yet, my joy was short-lived. I can remember the dread that filled me when I discovered that the TR-5 never came to the U.S. market. Wait just one G-D minute there, bucko. This friggin' Limey magazine says that the TR-5 wasn't made for the export market. Lookie here, pal, the U.S. of A. bought almost every single little sports car you managed to produce, and you didn't deem us worthy to give me a six-cylinder Michelotti-bodied Triumph! Some ally you are! We bailed your sorry asses out of two world wars! I was, in a word, crushed.
Editorial note: We wish to apologize to our English friends for the foregoing outburst. Rest assured that I am an Anglophile through and through, and that I take deep pride in my English heritage. I visit Britain regularly. I studied abroad at the University of London. I can hum "God Save the Queen" (never you mind that it's the same tune as "America, My Country 'Tis of Thee"). I like bangers and mash (mind out of the gutter, my American friends). I know and appreciate that "fanny" has a completely different meaning in the UK. I can use "git" in a sentence. For goodness sake, I have a Mod ringer target tattooed on my right bicep!! So please, accept my apologies, and the next round of warm beer is on me!
It was around this time that I actually had my first experience riding in one of Triumph's great six-cylinder cars, the GT-6. One of my best friends in high school had somehow talked his otherwise respectable parents into letting him buy what I recall to be a 1967 GT-6. Now this might not sound outrageous on its face, but one must factor into it that my friend and I were not only known car nuts, we were rather, shall we say, aggressive behind the wheel. Our favorite movie was the Blues Brothers, for the driving as much as the music. So allowing my friend and I to go gallivanting around the back roads of central Vermont ensconced in a car with no seatbelts and somewhat worn wire wheel splines seemed, well, almost as bad as allowing an eight-year-old to use a rusted Jaguar as playground equipment. In other words, something that no reasonable parent would do. Unless they wanted a call from protective services, that is.
Anyway, my pal -- who will remain nameless
because he's probably somehow respectable at this point in his life -- had
hoodwinked his folks into letting him get the GT-6. And what a delight it
was. That smooth 2-liter six surrounded in another inspired Michelotti
still holds a special place in my heart. If Triumphs were crack, I'd be
living outside the Port Authority in a cardboard box.
Entry #1. In the Beginning . . .
Where did it all start? How did we get here? In an age of multiple air bags, impact-absorbent body panels and roads choked with three-ton SUVs, why does a grown man willingly strap himself into a 37 year old death trap where the best safety features are reflective strips on the convertible top and optional lap belts? Like most vices and other forms of disreputable conduct, I blame it on the parents. My parents, that is. It is fair to say that old cars -- especially the British sporting variety -- are in my blood. For as long as I can remember, two derelict, rusty Jaguar XK-120 fixed head coupes sat first in an unused part of the driveway. I'd like to say that Sir William Lyons' sleek, aerodynamic lines captured my young imagination, that the grace, space and pace of Britain's first real post-war all-out sports car called to me through the rust. But let's be honest. That wasn't the case. Sure, I knew they were Jaguars, but the bottom line is that they were fun. Fun, you say? How so? Well, it was the 1970s, folks, and anything resembling modern concepts of safety were entirely unknown, even to generally cautious and coddling parents as mine. In other words, my parents allowed my brother and I to play on, around and in these two rotted hulks. I can remember hours of fun sitting on rusted floor boards completely devoid of anything resembling an interior, with the giant XK steering wheel clenched between my young fingers. I've got to assume I had my tetanus shots.
Eventually, one of those Jaguars found its way into my father's barn and underwent a complete frame-off restoration. The other selflessly donated much of its body and soul to the cause -- though fear not, loyal reader, as the parts car was eventually shipped to an eager buyer in Germany where it is reported to have undergone a restoration of its own. Or perhaps it was used as a planter. We can always hope for the best. Anyhow, I was fortunate enough to have played a supporting role in the restoration of the XK coupe, which was finished in silver with a red interior, sporting steel wheels and spats as Sir William intended. The restored cat was and remains simply elegant, and it's also an outrageously fast and furious beast. I will never forget the maiden voyage of the freshly restored Jag, dual-overhead-cam engine hammering away, propelling the aerodynamic coupe up a twisty mountain road with my father at the wheel and me by his side. It is fair to say that the restoration of that Jag, its maiden voyage and all voyages that followed transformed English sports cars from rusty, infection-causing jungle-gyms to objects of true desire.
“All right,” you may be asking yourself by now, “I see where he gets the English car thing. Rusty Jaguars. Yeah, yeah. But we’re two paragraphs into this and he hasn’t talked much about Triumphs. When the H-E-double-hockey-sticks do Triumphs come into the picture?” Well, impatient readers, the answer is that they didn’t come into the picture for quite some time. Sure, I *knew* about Triumphs, but my understanding and appreciation of them came rather late in life. You see, my folks were (and remain) kind of, well, er, selective about old cars. In a nice, friendly, upbeat, outgoing and likeable sort of way, but a bit selective nonetheless. I don’t want to give you the impression that my parents looked down their noses at anyone or their cars, because they didn’t. If it leaks oil, runs on regular gas and features no electronic components whatsoever my father is in favor of it. But let’s just say that Triumphs didn’t factor in to their antique car world view.
In all fairness, they came by this honestly. My father grew up in the 1950s, when the great classics of the 1920s and 1930s were simply broken used cars. To his credit, my father – although dressed at the time like Marlon Brando in the Wild One – had sufficient forethought to realize that the great classics were destined to become, well, great classics. At an early age, he started to acquire some pretty remarkable automobiles, and developed an affinity for Packards. He still owns and is perhaps best known for his 1932 Packard Victoria Super 8 with a custom body by Deitrich. This is an amazing machine by any standard. Had you shown up at Hurst Castle with it in 1932 – and you certainly could have – William Randolph himself would have said “Wow, pimpin’ ride” or something along those lines.
Also, the old man was coming of age just when British cars were starting to establish a toe hold in the American market. Reigning supreme over this British invasion was the Jaguar XK-120. Let’s be honest with each other. If you were a car-crazed young man in 1953, which English car would top your list? Sad but true, but the arrival of the TR-2 on our shores was, in my father’s star-struck eyes, overshadowed by the big lusty Jag.
My late mother also had an affinity for British iron, and again, TRs didn’t factor into the picture. As a wedding present, my grandparents bought mom a new 1960 Austin Healey 3000. This was the first Big Healey with the 3-litre engine, but before it got complicated with the triple-carb setup or weighed down with a lush interior and roll-up windows (though more on that later). My parents had fond memories of that racy black roadster, and family slideshows always included a couple of shots of mom and dad with their 3000. I can still see that faded Kodachrome photo of mom and dad in their Healey flanked by Marty Barofsky’s 3000 Mk II and Billy Schwartzchild’s MGA. I can’t even tell you if I ever met Mr. Barofsky or Mr. Schwartzchild, and I certainly couldn’t pick them out of a lineup today (if nice Jewish grandfathers somehow ended up in a lineup, that is). But I knew their cars, man. And yet nobody in my parents’ crazy a-go-go rat pack of early 1960s hipsters drove a Triumph.
So when was I infected with Triumph
ailment? And when did I decide that of all the great Triumph sports cars, the
250 was for me? Let us proceed and find out, shall we?
