For those of you who didn't know, the Texas Regional VTR meet in
New Braunfels happened this weekend. I was pretty busy so I
could only go to the car show on Sunday, BUT...neat things were
to be seen anyway. I'm told that everyone had fun motoring
through the hills around New Braunfels the day before (Yes, Texas
DOES have some lovely hill country :-).
As this was my first regional VTR meet (after owning Triumphs for
10 years!), I was pretty excited. I was hoping to behold all
manner of lovely TR's AND hoping the rain didn't keep people
home. Deb and I optimistically left Austin for New Braunfels in
a dusty (but happy) TR8 with the top down. We got a few
sprinkles along the way but none that warrented stopping. Here's
roughly what we saw when we arrived:
About 7 or 8 (I forget) TR7/8's.
About 20 or so BEAUTIFUL TR6's
A bunch of TR250's (maybe 5-10?)
Maybe 4 TR4's
About 10 TR3's
A handful of Spits
I think 5 Stags
1 Herald
Of course, there were other cars (like mine) in the parking lot
that were NOT entered too. I'm afraid I'm just now becoming
acquainted with the other Triumphs. I wish I knew more about
TR6's and TR3's to report back to you. These cars were very
well-represented and the best. The 6's were absolutely
amazing....the TLC put into these cars really blew the guys in
the 7/8 category out into the country. My wife went nuts over
all the TR3's. Anyone want to sell one, cheap? :-)
I was most interested in the TR7/8 group so the rest of my
"report" is a little lopsided. Of the TR7/8 group, I think they
break down (Ooops, sorry, bad word choice :-) into the following
groups:
3 81 TR8's
2? 80 carb'ed TR8's
1 78 TR8
1 76 TR7
1 80? TR7
One of these cars was really lovely, a gold 81 TR8 owned by Tom
Bishop of the local Hill Country Triumph club here in Austin.
His car was by far the best of the lot (I presume he won his
class). The colors of the cars were quite interesting too. Not
a single platinum or persian aqua in the lot. By the way, some
of you may remember that I asked late last year about replacing a
TR8 85mph speedo with a TR7 140mph speedo. It's a perfect
replacement. I did it a while back and was pleased to see I
wasn't alone; 3 of the 5 TR8's at the show had 140mph speedos :-)
Bill Sohl note: All three plenum chambers on the injected cars
had been repainted...seems flaking plenum chamber paint IS a
Texas problem. Well, that's enough of a report for now. Perhaps
some other Texas Triumpher could add more?
jim
jatc@emx.utexas.edu
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