Most know parts of this story--I've had a Triumph of one sort or
another for most of the time since 1968. My first was a `63 Spit
that I bought in Hawaii when I was stationed there. Brought it back
to the mainland, ran it until `71. It was getting a little tired and
I thought I'd put it up on blocks for the winter and fix it up
during the summer. It was incorrectly described as an abandoned car,
and early one Saturday morning, the National Guard picked it up
during a clean-up campaign and destroyed it.
Then the Corvair convertible I was driving during the winter melted
an electrical cable bundle (the fire wasn't that big, so I can't
exactly say it was destroyed), so I eventually found a `62 TR4 for
$900 and drove that all through college and graduate school (my
first kid came home from the hospital in it). In the late `70s I was
working at a dude ranch and a runaway tractor hit it and pretty much
destroyed it beyond my wallet's ability to repair it. It had burned
a valve by then and the body was fairly well rusted out, so it had
to eventually be parted out in 1981.
The end of that car's time overlapped with about twenty years of
driving VW buses, which were great for hauling stuff. But, I knew I
was missing sports cars (probably one of the reasons I put a Lancia
twin-cam into the last bus I've owned). So, in the early `90s, after
I'd paid off all the bills from being out of work for thirteen
months, I bought a basket case `70 GT6 with the intention of just
doing a quick refurbish and putting it on the road. It's still in
the garage, waiting for me to get over a bad case of
meta-shipwright's disease--I keep adding to what I'm going to
modify. At present, it's undergoing more head work and I'm modifying
a used PI injection manifold to accept electronic FI injectors.
Eventually, I'll run out of ideas and actually finish the car.
Work wasn't going very quickly on that, so I bought a beater `72 GT6
to knock around in, and have had that since spring of 1997. Then I
found a `72 parts car for it for $200. Then I found a `63 TR4 in bad
shape, but barely running. Then I found a kind of neat John's Cars
`80 TR7 conversion with a Buick V-6 that needed some work. Then I
found a basket case `67 TR4A that might make a vintage racer.
Now I have enough to do. I just need more space to do it. :)
Oh, yeah, I bought my first Triumph a month or so after my 21st
birthday.
Cheers, all.
--
Michael D. Porter
Roswell, NM
Never let anyone drive you crazy when you know it's within walking
distance.
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