Bob,
It really doesn't matter which side of the coin you look at, there are
prudes on both sides. On one hand you have the people who spend
thousands more on their cars than they ever hope to be able to recover
and trailer them to events in order not to damage their investment and
spend every waking hour polishing it. Those are the people who tend to
wonder why anyone would possible add a Crane electronic ignition to
their car.
On the flip side are those who don't care anything about "concours" and
probably couldn't even spell it if asked to. These are the people who
spend too much money trying to improve on a good (or maybe not so good)
design in hopes of enhance reliability, comfort or performance. They
can't understand how somebody could spend all that money on a car that
they don't drive.
Then there are all the rest of us who spend too much money on the cars
that we love simply because we love them. We offer up all kinds of
rationale for the money we spend, trying in vain to convince somebody
(often ourselves) that we are justified in doing so. But we keep on
doing it because that's the way we are.
There is no judging system that covers all circumstances, so the best we
can hope for is having a combination of both. I am in favor of
splitting concours from people's choice voting (you can't enter a car in
both) and having classes for each model (where there are enough entrants
to do so).
While there are a number of valid reasons for trailering a car to an
event (most prominently distance and car size); in order to compete in
people's choice voting, it should be demonstrated that the purpose of
trailering the car is NOT to keep it in pristine condition. Such proof
could be the entry of the car in an autocross or some other event that
says "this is no trailer queen".
But in my opinion, while we will always have those highly pampered cars
around, these cars are made to be driven. If you don't drive them, you
are missing at least half the fun of Triumph ownership.
Regards,
Joe
P.S. I'd be willing to bet that most people who own Triumphs could not
tell what is and is not modified on any model other than the one they
drive.
Bob Danielson wrote:
>
> I've been following this thread with interest and would like to toss out
> one more variable/question: what constitutes modified? I suspect that at "
> Triumph only" shows, the majority of participants voting, favor cars that
> are restored to "as close to original" as possible. Obviously someone with
> triple webers, a supercharger or a V8 would be considered modified. If
> original is defined as *how you could have bought the car equipped when
> new*, wouldn't that throw a lot of our cars into the modified class? My TR6
> has a lot of "enhancements" that would/should keep it from being considered
> original: Koni & Spax shocks, mohair top, burlwood dash, Grant steering
> wheel, Hayden Aux Fan, K&N air filters, spin on oil filter, Bridgestone
> tires, AM/FM cassette stereo.. etc. etc. It was also driven over 5,000 miles
> in the past year. My question for the list is twofold: should there be a
> more liberal interpretation of modified to include cars such as mine
> and..... in a participant's vote, do you favor the Triumph that has been
> restored to original specs over one that has been "modified", <even if the
> modified one were a car in better overall condition>? My guess is that at a
> mixed event (Triumphs, Healey, Jags etc), the participants vote for the car
> they like best. At a single marquee event, they vote more on originality.
> This isn't meant as a flame by any means....... just curious as to how the
> list feels (and votes) about original vs. "modified".
>
> Bob Danielson
> 75 TR6 - Status at
> http://pages.cthome.net/BobD
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Tom Gentry <tgentry@execpc.com>
> To: <triumphs@autox.team.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 1998 2:32 PM
> Subject: RE: Judging "New" Triumphs, was Trailer Queens
>
> >
> >Joe said:
> >>>As for
> >telling if someone is lying, I think it would be rather easy to tell the
> >trailer queens from the drivers.<<
> >
> >Now we open up a whole new can of worms. What constitutes a "driver"? 100
> miles per year? 10,000 miles per year? Driven only to local shows? Driven
> rain or shine? Driven only on nice Sunday afternoons? As an owner who
> believes that cars should be driven, I would love to see a class like this,
> I just don't see how it can be done.
> >
> >I've only been to one Mustang show, and it had no concourse, only
> participant's choice, broken down into like model years and modified or
> stock. Modified was determined to be 3 or more non factory options, and I
> saw many cars registered in stock class that should have been in modified.
> I took 3rd in '94-'98 Mustang (stock) beating out another Mystic Cobra with
> only 1800 miles on it, to my 21,000. I think that shows that the Mustang
> crowd appreciates the cars that are driven, too.
> >
> >Tom Gentry
> >Life is too short to drive boring cars!
> >'96 Ford SVT Cobra Mystic #1345 (mostly stock)
> >'72 Triumph TR-6 OD (highly modified)
> >'59 Triumph 10 Sedan (in boxes)
> >
--
"If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort."
-- Dave Weinbaum in National Enquirer
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