Tuesday 15 March 2011

History

My first post!Best I start with my car history. It was a poor start, learning to drive in my sisters brown allegro, but perked up a little over the following years. My first Triumph was a Dolomite 1500SE

Apart from worn piston rings, it was a pretty nice car. Had it for a year or so, but then had a variety of other cars until I got a job and bought a ropey Spitfire. Happens to be thesame time I met the lady wife, so it was inevitable the car was to be used on out wedding day. Note the 1990 hairstyle!


This got replaced after a year by a GT6, a car that went well, but had a nasty vibration that I just couldn't get sorted. If only there had been the Triumph forums back then.
 
 This got replaced by a MK3 spitfire, bought as a part completed restoration (ie new sills I pulled off by hand) and is where I learnt to weld, rebuild engines and later got the modifying bug. The ford bluecolour was a bit of an issue, but that changed. At the same time it got a 16V sprint engine fitted, done in just under 2 weeks over the Easter holidays. Gill drove the car every day until she was 8 months pregnant. It was only when her bump prevented her fitting behind the wheel she stopped. Meanwhile we added a second Triumph, this time a Herald  saloon fondly known as Harry (since been renamed Mildred). We also had to have a rethink on the 2 seater, as we now had one child, soon followed by another. So along came the Vitesse. Or rather it was created from 3 cars. It was my main transport for over 10 years

The picture was taken the day Harry went off to a new home, as he was replaced by a Herald estate for very practical purposes. The estate soon got the name "shed" for obvious reasons, but is also where I got involved in a bit of motorsport, being used by myself for many road rallies, and Doug and Katie Foreman for an autosolo. Doug tried hard to get the poor car on its roof, thankfully failing. However, he put in some good times beating a TR8! However I trumped him by using my Zetec powered spitfire giving me my first class win.
Sadly this car met an unfortunate ending in Scotland in 2008, but the replacement is under way.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment