I put this together some years ago era 1998/99 .. this will give you an idea of
the changes we lived through....
T.R.
IT FOLLOWED ME HOME !!!!
(A TR Story)
There is a coincidence or some strange force that is reflected in the
history numbers we celebrate this year. It has been forty-four years since
the Triumph Sports Owners Association published their first newsletter
aligning mysteriously with the numbers heralded by Triumph's historical race
team, Group 44. T.S.O.A. reigned for 25 years and we are embarking on a
summer of celebration marking the 25th Anniversaries of the Triumph Register
of America and the Vintage Triumph Register. Car club activities trickled
down since the early 1900s. In the teens the Automobile Racing Club of
America found its start. Enthusiasts collectively got together under the
banner of the Sports Car Club of America in 1944 in an effort to protect
prewar American cars from going to the scrap heap. SCCA eventually became the
stateside governing body of sports car racing. Triumph's final success at
breaking into the sports car world in the early 50s can be attributed to
their support of a phenomenon we know as the club newsletter.
I'm icebound. Winter has returned to central Ohio. The old kind!!
Not the professed, global warming sorts that we've had over the past few
years. One good thing that's come from being restricted is that I've found
time to stay in the office and clean up piles of stuff that's accumulated
over the last few years. For seven days I've been amidst a collection of 35
years of Triumph memorabilia, newsletters, parts and the sort. The
realization that it's been over a quarter of a century of doing this TR
obsession thing grabbed right at my throat.
Amazing!!! Here we all are, the few that bought them new, the many who
picked them up on their way down and out then drove them into the ground, and
the masses that insisted on resurrecting them and preserving them for the
future. It's been some forty-four years since the Triumph Sports Owners
Association (T.S.O.A.) published the first factory-sponsored newsletter. It
provided technical support and product updates for the new Triumph owner.
T.S.O.A.'s format also reported regional club and race activities from all
parts of the country and Triumph competition news about the world.
T.S.O.A. was the link to the enthusiast from across the pond for over 25
years. The club networks are still alive and well. They are everywhere, --
all corners of the earth. And I'd be the first to believe that somewhere
some TR nut is doing research out in space trying to figure out how to get
their favorite toy to go beyond the forces of gravity; -- a lot further than
you get slipping on the oil coming out of the "S's" at the Mid-Ohio Race
Course.
I've watched most of them form and grow. The club enthusiasm has proven
itself the bond that perpetuated life for the TR eccentrics. The thrills and
spills have taken us to places near and far where we have initiated new
friendships and renewed old ones, its members passing to each new generation
of enthusiasts the wherewithal to experience the glory of days gone by. It's
not just been about educating someone as to the the difference between a
"cute little car "and "an interesting piece of automotive engineering".
Club associations have grown from day to day, month to month, national
meeting to national meeting, with a picnic, rally, marque day or race
scattered in between. Everybody's questions got answered whether it was a
mass outing coalition or the interested passer by who would say nice "__
__" as they stood there looking at 7-inch initials T.R. on your tee-shirt.
We lived through the highs and lows of factory growth, union disputes and
club organization.
Nonetheless, the energetic commitment of the owners enabled the TR
series to march on through time. In 1955 the factory club began providing
service to the new TR2 owners. T.S.O.A. evolved with the new products of the
factory, constantly expanding the scope of their support. Enthusiastic early
TR owners formed the TR Register in England in 1970 initially providing
concentrated support to TR2 - 3B's. Then within five years their membership
was opened to other marques. The Triumph Register of America was kindled in
1972 as a TR3 sports car club and aligned as TRA in 1974. Here the TR2 - 3B
finds its most concentrated support. In recent years, TRA began trying to
reconstruct the TR4s they had destroyed for parts cars in the beginning.
(Both the TR Register and TRA recognized owners of TR4 and other
drivetrain-similar cars as associate members.) The Vintage Triumph Register
formed in 1974. It seemed the initial interest was in providing support for
prewar Triumphs, but VTR formally came out in support of Triumphs ten years
and older, which included the TR-2 through -4. When T.S.O.A. published their
last newsletter in December of 1981, VTR accepted the torch from them to
continue support to all the Triumph marques.
Specialty marque clubs continued to branch out: -- the Triumph Sports
Six Club on the continent supporting the small cars (e.g., Spitfire, GT6,
Herald, etc.). In the U.S.A. (1982) 6-Pack geared up to support the
fraternal order of TR6s. You could usually find a TR250 hanging out with
these guys. Although the organization "4-Play" never was widespread, it
still lives in the hearts of the adoring following of the Triumph TR4.
T.S.O.A. spawned Triumph clubs all over the world. Even a quasi club
registry was initiated amidst all this. (Now there's something for somebody
to do: -- List all the TR clubs that have been formed over the past
forty-four years and, in addition, make a collage of all their badges. (This
would take one whopper of a badge bar.)
All the Triumph marques have had some sort of individual support
directed to them over the years. With these affiliations, enthusiasts and
their TR's stumbled through parts supply lulls. (Some still! Try to find a
Doretti grill or a windshield for an Italia.) Far and wide the Triumph
diehards would grab every want-ad and newsletter they could get their hands
on, constantly searching for new and used parts. Airline people were bribed
to smuggle in tax-free parts from abroad. People stood in line in a seller's
back yard praying for the person in front of them not to take a parts car,
then at the last minute someone would start a bidding war in order to get the
prize. Now you get dozens of catalogs and flyers in the mail and multiple
vendors flock to the meets with more parts than you can shake a stick at. (I
don't know about you people, but I'll draw the line on TR parts
telemarketers.)
National meetings were few and far between in the early days. "Triumph
Rally of Europe" was a collective group event initiated in 1957. These were
not annual meetings, but were organized to give enthusiasts the excitement of
buying their cars directly from the factory and driving them around Europe
before bringing them home. This provided the inspiration for national
meetings to come. Funny about the people thing: The group that went on that
first rally reunioned annually for over twenty years. Maybe they still
do????
The internet. Wow! Well, -- sort of wow. The balderdash and the
stupid questions are still being reiterated and those who don't know how to
read a "TR" tee-shirt are making comments on things they know nothing about.
Fortunately the club pages abound and the parts and service areas are just
starting to expand. Anyone that completes a restoration and complains about
how much trouble they experienced has simply had their head somewhere else
than under the hood of their car.
Clubs, directories, etc., were pennies from heaven for the anti-clunker
bill lobbyist. The efforts of the new-car-sales-backed environmentalists are
not curbed but they're at least slowed from election to election now.
The cars! Oh what an effect camaraderie and competition had. At the
start of the registry efforts, over half the cars in a show field were vying
for "Diamond in the Rough" or UF-DUH awards. Given an opportunity to park
their cars in rows to compete for multiple awards in all sorts of classes,
the enthusiasts began striving to attain new heights for their Triumph cars.
With the availability of concourse guideline manuals, the quality of the cars
took a jump beyond their original production specs. Nowadays almost any one
of the cars on the field you'd feel comfortable parking in front of your
parents' house, -- or at least in front of the neighbors.
I've really enjoyed reflecting my experiences over the past thirty-five
years: .... I was a wide-eyed child who was given a ride in the beginning; I
was a prosecutor presenting my case to Dad to buy my first one (my paper
route money, his garage and woodworking shop); he and I rebuilt the engine in
"Ole Blue" by bonfire in the barn while I was home on a week-end pass; amid a
blizzard, five friends and I piled into the Triumph, top up and side curtains
in place and drove from Madison to Milwaukee so someone could visit Mom and
get the Rambler station wagon; I've driven down that long hill into Knoxville
at a hundred and ten miles an hour, possessed with wanting know what she'd
do, and therein forming an inseparable bond between man and TR; I went to sea
for the first time longing to get one more glimpse of the Triumph before
cresting the horizon, then started thinking maybe when I came back there
would be a whole lot full of them there; I've reread the newsletters,
reexperienced the laughter, fought the struggles and won the rallies all over
again. I remembered the concourse fields filled with TRs..... I
stopped,called old friends and promised myself if the ice ever thaws I'll
take a wide-eyed kid for a ride. It's the youth of today who are the new
torch bearers of the TR marque we've toiled to preserve. It's tomorrow I
want to preserve for the next twenty-five years.
The enthusiasm never stopped but it sure is pumped up for this year.
This goes out to all the enthusiasts, volunteers, owners, Triumph dealers,
used car salesmen and is directed at everyone who even took a ride in one,
wanted one, or just saw a picture of one; -- yes, even to the Detroit iron
mechanic in the gas station on the corner that blurted out, "You want me to
work on that furrin' thing?"
Get your TR out -- convince a young friend to go along -- and celebrate
these twenty-five year anniversaries wherever you participate in activities
this summer. Get together and tell "TR stories" * and show the world that
TRIUMPH GLORIES STILL EXIST.
Thanks to all of you, -- the old, the new, the not yet touched -- and,
take heart, you, the young. Pat your newsletter editor on the back. They've
been the lifeblood of this success story. The memories are great and the
future still holds excitement and mystery. We haven't found them all. Start
your engines. Let's power shift into the new millennium.
TRIUMPHantly,
T. R. Householder
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