In a message dated 01-Aug-99 21:18:20 Eastern Daylight Time,
jonmac@ndirect.co.uk writes:
> A fifth speed? Obviously your salesman should have been shot! I can't
> believe he didn't know that O/D on a TR4 gave you 7 speeds in total.
> But what I've read on the earlier post stands up to scrutiny. For some
> obscure reason, US dealers just didn't sell overdrives on US ordered cars.
> Heaven knows why not. From what I remember, every car we sold in the UK to
> US visitors or US service personnel had overdrives. Financially, it was go
> for the jugular as far as our commission was concerned and when you told
> them an O/D gave seven ultra close speeds on a four cogger, the signature
> went straight on the line that was dotted.
>
Jonmac, right. I had a bad dealer. But then I dealt with the Triumph US
sales folks in New York City. I think it was the National Representative for
the US. They gave me no info at all and probably wondered what this West
Point Cadet was trying to do by ordering a car from them for pickup in the
UK.
I had ordered a car from a Triumph dealer in Newburg, NY in October '63, only
to find in February of '64 that the "white, black convertible top, leather
interior, wire wheels equipped" car that I had ordered was in fact a "blue,
with black top, vinyl interior, disk wheel" car. He had not only failed to
advise me about OD but he didn't even get the car that I had ordered. He
told me that what he had for me was what he had received. I told him to
"stuff it" and went to the Yellow Pages to get the phone number of the
National Rep in NY city. I then ordered the car, which I wanted, from them,
for pickup in the UK (while I was on "Graduation Leave").
So you are right, in my case there was no marketing pressure. Unfortunately
this led that young cadet (me) to not understand the value of OD. I wonder
how many other customers in the US had the same problem. Maybe this is
another reason why Triumph went under? There was a big market in the US but
obviously a there was a disconnect between what you sales guys in the UK were
doing and what the US sales guys were doing. Cheers.
Art Kelly
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