I wouldn't disagree with anything in general terms in what Nolan has said.
Perhaps the only query
I'd raise (pedantic) concerns the hardtops. Cars ordered with them were shipped
with them fitted.
Hardtop kits (as identified by a part number from the Parts Division) were
usually shipped as a
basic steel shell in primer paint with all the necessary fittings - viz listing
bars, headliner,
glass, seals, clamps etc. If a TR owner wanted a hardtop, this was usually made
up by the dealer
bodyshop and painted in either a matching colour to the car or something
entirely different. This is
why they stayed in primer.
As for the transit damage issues, these were often major and from what Nolan
has said, little
appears to have changed. Triumph-wise, we're talking (mostly) of times when
ordinary
non-containerised cargo ships were used and not the Ro-Ro (roll on roll off)
vessels of today.
Because the boats took a range of cargoes and not just cars, it wasn't unusual
for timber packing
crates to go below decks in rope slings, with the cars going on open deck in
all weathers. After a
few weeks sitting on a flooded WW2 airfield transit park waiting for payment to
be set up and then
up to a week or ten days in the full force of a winter Atlantic storm, it can
be reasonably be
argued that the rust started round about then :)
Earlier shipments in the 50's and early 60's of sidescreen TR's, cars were
usually shipped without
windscreens, soft tops or bumpers and had only the normal factory tonneau to
cover the cockpit. The
front and rear ends had timber baulks fitted and these were ideal as pushers.
I've seen several pix
of new TR3's at Liverpool and Southampton, bumper to bumper along the dockside,
with the last car in
the row pushing perhaps 10 or 15 cars in front, so the clutch was 'well used'
by the time the first
owner got it. Movement was on a one-at-a-time basis as the car rolled on to a
cradle and was craned
up on to the top deck. Yes, sometimes they fell off - but they were always put
on board, unless they
actually went in the dock itself. Mostly, really badly damaged cars (assessed
by the ship's crew)
were sited close to the ships rails and pushed overboard in international
waters. Marine Insurance
picked up the loss and usually by a note in the manifest of 'bad weather'
'freak wave' or 'broken
deck lashings.'
Oh Happy Days
Jonmac
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