List messages about how long people have owned cars leads to another thought.
My '59 Triumph was first purchased in 1960 and driven until 1975, when it was
parked in a sad shed to sit morose and inches from the crusher with floors
completely rusted out, wheels frozen tight, and with decades of dried racoon
feces coating the engine. In 2004 I picked it up for $500, the winner among
those others who had interest because I was the one who figured out how to
loosen the wheels to get it rolling and how to use a come-along and tow chain
to plough it uphill through the mud to a trailer.
Love breeds determination, I suppose.
Took three years to get it on the road again, so mathematically I've been
driving it 44% of it's life. I guess that means in two more years I'll be the
"primary" owner of a car that's 57 years old?
I can't imagine the histories of cars on this list, how close so many came to
the scrap heap, and what lenghts you all have gone to to keep them alive. I
suppose to it's a bit like thinking of our ancestors in the medieval period
surviving famines, plagues and feudal battles to leave us by extraordinary
chance the opportunity to be here.
Except I wouldn't have bothered with the TR3 in the first place if I hadn't
researched and found that Moss, The Roadster Factory, and Victoria British
supplied almost everything needed to bring it back to life.
Terry Smith, '59 TR3A TS 58667
New Hampshire
** triumphs@autox.team.net **
Archive: http://www.team.net/archive
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