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Hello everyone, great to see a Brit car forum that gets some action. I tried joining a few triumph boards, one TR6 specific, but it seems they get very little traffic. My apologies ahead of time for this long post, my car life in a nutshell.
First of all, I'm relatively new to the vintage British car scene, since the last 4 years or so. Previous to that I've spent my entire adult life (about 25 years) in, under, and around vintage american muscle cars. I got my first car when I was 15 (1984, you do the math), it was a 67 Mustang fastback GTA. I spent the next two years learning how to rebuild motors, do a restoration, and basically cut my teeth using that car as a project with my dad. Somehow I let myself get talked into selling it only a few weeks before getting my drivers license, and the car was completely done except for paint and putting on the trim. Oh well, I took that money and rolled it into a 72 Nova SS, which I had all the way until I got out of college. To make a long story short, I've had 3 vintage Mustangs, an Impala, a Galaxie, the Nova, a Wrangler, and a few japanese sports cars before coming to the TR6. My daily driver now is a Volvo 850.
So how did I get into British cars from this life spent mostly in Detroit iron? Well, when I was in high school I had this friend who's dad had two TR6's and a AH3000. I was over his house one day and his dad said he was going for a ride in one of the TR's and would I like to come along. Well, I was into cars heavy, and I'd never been in a small convertible sports car, so I jumped at the chance. I was completely blown away, I loved it. Certainly I had owned cars that were faster and more powerful than the TR6, but nothing felt like that. I said to myself that someday I would own one of these. Well, a few years ago a picked up a 68 Galaxie fastback for a song, I basically stole it from the guy who sold it to me. I put a little work into it and sold it for many times what I paid, so I had some pocket money to spend and nothing in the garage. I decided it was time to look for the TR.
My car is a 73, Carmine red with the tan interior, and I've had it for 4 years now. It is an original overdrive car, but the overdrive unit is currently not in. Apparently, the transmission had been changed at some point in the cars life and was replaced with a non-OD trans. Someday, I'll find one to make it right. When I got the car it was a bit of a basket case, interior was completely shot, body wasn't bad but not great, it ran but not well (well, well enough to get it home). I spent the first winter with the car completely gutting and replacing the interior. This was spurred by a small electrical fire that occurred one week after I bought the car, and which completely cooked the wiring harness from the firewall up into the dash. I also rebuilt the motors top end, the short block was solid and I believe the indicated mileage (68K) to have been correct. The outer body panels are in good shape (wings, doors, hood and trunk lid), with a small amount of bondo having been applied to the rear deck and the tail light panel. The car was repainted once some time ago in its original color, but it is pretty much shot again now, hood and trunk lid are badly oxidized. There are a few rust holes in some of the inner panels, and I repaired a few holes in the floor pans when I did the interior. Frame is in good shape, I've had the car on the lift several times at my buddies garage and as far as we can tell, no rust repair has been done to the frame (nor is needed yet), and someone went and reinforced a few areas just for the heck of it it seems. Last summer I did some suspension work (new springs and shocks) and a complete brake rebuild front to back. I've done some mods in the interest of performance and reliability, Pertronix ignitor and flame thrower coil, electric fuel pump, and a cold air induction setup that I built myself. This coming winter it'll get an electric fan with thermostatic control as another upgrade. Someday, when my very small son is old enough to work on cars, I'll do a complete frame off resto on this car and fix all the inner panels, any remaining bondo, and that kind of thing, but for now it's a rolling resto and weekend fun car, not a show car. However, I'll end this with a funny story. My car did take a 1st place two summers ago at a car show. This show was primarily for muscle cars and import tuners (rice!!!), but I drove to the show in the TR, not intending to enter the car. The guy at the gate asked me if I wanted to enter the car, and my buddy talked me into it since we could then park with the show cars, plus you got a nice t-shirt for entering. Turns out, in the "import stock" class there were only two other cars, a brand new Nissan 350Z and a nicely restored Toyota Celica (early 80's vintage I believe). I ended up taking the first, and I got a lot of compliments on having a really cool little car. I don't think the guy with the 350Z was to pleased.
With that I'll end this book. I'm located in central New Jersey and I belong to the New Jersey Triumph Association, and if I can ever do another TR owner a favor please don't hesitate to ask if I'm near you.
Thanks,
Scott
First of all, I'm relatively new to the vintage British car scene, since the last 4 years or so. Previous to that I've spent my entire adult life (about 25 years) in, under, and around vintage american muscle cars. I got my first car when I was 15 (1984, you do the math), it was a 67 Mustang fastback GTA. I spent the next two years learning how to rebuild motors, do a restoration, and basically cut my teeth using that car as a project with my dad. Somehow I let myself get talked into selling it only a few weeks before getting my drivers license, and the car was completely done except for paint and putting on the trim. Oh well, I took that money and rolled it into a 72 Nova SS, which I had all the way until I got out of college. To make a long story short, I've had 3 vintage Mustangs, an Impala, a Galaxie, the Nova, a Wrangler, and a few japanese sports cars before coming to the TR6. My daily driver now is a Volvo 850.
So how did I get into British cars from this life spent mostly in Detroit iron? Well, when I was in high school I had this friend who's dad had two TR6's and a AH3000. I was over his house one day and his dad said he was going for a ride in one of the TR's and would I like to come along. Well, I was into cars heavy, and I'd never been in a small convertible sports car, so I jumped at the chance. I was completely blown away, I loved it. Certainly I had owned cars that were faster and more powerful than the TR6, but nothing felt like that. I said to myself that someday I would own one of these. Well, a few years ago a picked up a 68 Galaxie fastback for a song, I basically stole it from the guy who sold it to me. I put a little work into it and sold it for many times what I paid, so I had some pocket money to spend and nothing in the garage. I decided it was time to look for the TR.
My car is a 73, Carmine red with the tan interior, and I've had it for 4 years now. It is an original overdrive car, but the overdrive unit is currently not in. Apparently, the transmission had been changed at some point in the cars life and was replaced with a non-OD trans. Someday, I'll find one to make it right. When I got the car it was a bit of a basket case, interior was completely shot, body wasn't bad but not great, it ran but not well (well, well enough to get it home). I spent the first winter with the car completely gutting and replacing the interior. This was spurred by a small electrical fire that occurred one week after I bought the car, and which completely cooked the wiring harness from the firewall up into the dash. I also rebuilt the motors top end, the short block was solid and I believe the indicated mileage (68K) to have been correct. The outer body panels are in good shape (wings, doors, hood and trunk lid), with a small amount of bondo having been applied to the rear deck and the tail light panel. The car was repainted once some time ago in its original color, but it is pretty much shot again now, hood and trunk lid are badly oxidized. There are a few rust holes in some of the inner panels, and I repaired a few holes in the floor pans when I did the interior. Frame is in good shape, I've had the car on the lift several times at my buddies garage and as far as we can tell, no rust repair has been done to the frame (nor is needed yet), and someone went and reinforced a few areas just for the heck of it it seems. Last summer I did some suspension work (new springs and shocks) and a complete brake rebuild front to back. I've done some mods in the interest of performance and reliability, Pertronix ignitor and flame thrower coil, electric fuel pump, and a cold air induction setup that I built myself. This coming winter it'll get an electric fan with thermostatic control as another upgrade. Someday, when my very small son is old enough to work on cars, I'll do a complete frame off resto on this car and fix all the inner panels, any remaining bondo, and that kind of thing, but for now it's a rolling resto and weekend fun car, not a show car. However, I'll end this with a funny story. My car did take a 1st place two summers ago at a car show. This show was primarily for muscle cars and import tuners (rice!!!), but I drove to the show in the TR, not intending to enter the car. The guy at the gate asked me if I wanted to enter the car, and my buddy talked me into it since we could then park with the show cars, plus you got a nice t-shirt for entering. Turns out, in the "import stock" class there were only two other cars, a brand new Nissan 350Z and a nicely restored Toyota Celica (early 80's vintage I believe). I ended up taking the first, and I got a lot of compliments on having a really cool little car. I don't think the guy with the 350Z was to pleased.
With that I'll end this book. I'm located in central New Jersey and I belong to the New Jersey Triumph Association, and if I can ever do another TR owner a favor please don't hesitate to ask if I'm near you.
Thanks,
Scott
