World Cup PI's Triumph's finest hour?

There seems to be a deal of excitment around at the moment about the PI World Cup Rally cars. Interest seems to pop to the surface every few years or so only to quitely dissappear again. For someone like myself who has carefully researched and harboured more than a passing desire for them for over 30 years I find this Johnny come lately interest good for the cause. An injection of new blood every so often keeps the legend alive, at times it seems it has been the preserve of a few die hards in the 2000 Register to keep the interest from waining . You may have seen elsewhere the photo evidence of my recent visit to see XJB 304H in the flesh after being hidden away for a few decades. On this occassion I dragged along one of these 'new blood' World Cuppers, Jason Chinn. Jason fortunately remembered to bring along his camera to capture the moment, my digital has unfortunately finally bowed to the pressure of helping to put this website together and finally thrown in the towel! Seeing 304 in the flesh means that I have now carefully examined every extent World Cup Car (including WRX 902H, the test car thats here in our workshop), including the only surviving privately entered car. The only car that has so far eluded me is XJB 302H the Paddy Hopkirk car that came 4th in the World Cup, although I have many recent pictures, I have yet to see it close up (soon to be sorted!) . I have to say that when it comes to sorting out future originality issues between the survivors, that this is one particular minefield that is going to take some careful investigation, I have my opinions! The sadest fact surrounding all of this World Cup PI mania is that the most successful of them all XJB 305H in which Brian Culcheth brilliantly fought his way to second place overall in the worlds hardest rally (only denied the number one slot by Ford cheating!) was scrapped on the instruction of Heritage. So the legend go's it was supposed to be being restored by the BL Swindon apprentices, while in fact it lay unloved in a car park gradually being picked over for goodies by everyone and their dog. Every now and again a snippet of news comes our way to refute 305's final demise, we have heard lately that 305 is substantially alive and well, we shall see!
In conclusion one of the largest gaps in the Canley 'Triumph Museum' presantly is one of these gallant flag flyers for Triumph in the 1970's, hmm we need to sort that out!

Trouble at Mill

Sad to hear about John Muggleton resigning from his management position at the TSSC. Nice guy, always approachable, keen, knowlegable, and most importantly a genuine Triumph driving enthusiast. Rare thing that nowadays, a Triumph owner that actually drives them, but rarer still amongst the larger classics car club higher up's. John led a deal of credibility to the 'enthustiast' element of classic car club management. His replacement, if any, will have to be carefully thought about if the TSSC is not to be seen to be slipping more towards the 'business' of classic car clubing. Good luck John in whatever it is you decide to do in the future, keep driving those Triumph's mate.

Couldn't think of anything else to photo, so I just took a quick shot of the car park on a Saturday afternoon, more Triumphs than a winters local TSSC meeting, and we shut shop 4 hours ago!

Good start to the year!

What did you think to Stonleigh? Can't complain about the trading bit, we were very busy all day, to the point that I never got the chance to get away from our stand once! It's a bit of a disappointment as I would have loved to have had walk around and see whats new, but that's 2 years running Iv'e not managed it, good job I have a strong bladder! Sorry to hear about Chic Doig having his days takings stolen, what a shock. All the effort involved in coming all that way only to have their till stolen, I hope the toe rags responsible get caught.

I have had an interesting week, I have finally got to see in the flesh two of my dream cars. The new owner of XJB 304H (World Cup PI)had invited me down for a look, he's a lucky guy as he also owns Brian Cultcheths Safari PI, a car he bought directly from Abingdon many years ago. What a car 304 is, still fitted out with its aluminum panelwork, and 'works' mechanicals.

The other car I got to see in the flesh this week was WRX 902H, the World Cup test car PI, and latterly the Scottish rally winning car. We collected it from the shot blasters in Coventry and trailored it back to the Canley workshops for some major bodywork. Hmm 'works' PI's in abundance, nirvana, take me now, I've died and gone to heaven!

Oh, just a quick reminder, don't forget that we are now offering a free entry into our 'Cars for Sale' part of our website for existing customers. A brief description and 2 or 3 decent electronic piccys sent to us via e-mail and your car is included. we have had an amazing success rate so far, with most customers cars selling within a matter of days. We are now also extending this service (again to existing Canley customers) to a free parts for sale area (ie its going to cost you nothing, not that the parts have to be free!) on the website, as long as your parts aren't direct competition for our own then you are welcome to include them. Please include your customer account number or postcode in your mail so that we can check your account history, that's all it takes, free, buckshee, no cash required, what will we think of next!

Picture - WRX back from the blasters!

Going to Stoneleigh?

Er, has it really been that long since my last Blog (Happy Christmas!) oop's, naughty boy, must try harder! Anyway a belated happy new year to you all, only a month late. What's my excuse this time I hear you ask? Well it's like this see, it's not like I slope off every night after the day shift finish's, I have been working longer hours than usual this past month. So what's taking up my valuable Triumph driving time? Quite simply I am sitting here for hour after labourious hour number crunching for the new catalogue. Imagine checking every single part number on our system sometimes two or three times and then adjusting descriptions, checking supply, stock holding, etc. The initial fruits of these labours can be viewed on our new on-line catalogue, currently sitting alongside our old scanned in John Kipping catalogue for the time being. When we are completely satisfied that any bugs are ironed out we will finally pull the old JK catalogue off the site, and what a fantastic effort by John it proved to be lasting a full 10 years without major modification (is this a record in the classic car market?). Not long after we are fully live with our new offering we will be commiting to a print run of a paper version, and it will be a whopper as its already over 200 pages and growing!

Any way back to the Stoneleigh Triumph show this Sunday, are you going? You should, it proved to be one of the highlights of the show season last year, and was a cracking start to the season. Need anything bringing along, save on P&P, but order early, Friday may be to late as by then be will be packing the truck. Come along and say hello anyway, its always nice to put names to faces. As an added bonus this year we will be bringing along ADU 4B Leman Spitfire for its first UK show ever, and one of the very few times you will be able to see it in the flesh this year. See you there!

Happy Christmas!

Firstly a happy Christmas and a great New Year to you all,I hope Santa brings you what you wished for!

My Christmas present came early this year in the shape of another Spitfire! You may remember a Blog or two ago me mentioning the possibility of an 'interesting' Spitfire coming to light locally after many years in hiding. Well a week or two ago it arrived on a trailer and is now ensconced in the museum. It's none other than 'the' Richard Lloyd (team Gold Seal Racing) plastic Spitfire! Richard brought his car along personally aided by former 'works', and Gold Seal, and latterly 412 VC's mechanic Peter Clarke. What a fantastic surprise. The car itself is in need of much restoration, but with the history inbedded in this car it wil be worth the effort. For those of you who don't know Gold Seal Racing consisted of three Spitfires and drivers, Richard Lloyd, Chris Marshal, and Pete Cox. The car's were extreemly modified decendants of 412 VC (prototype Spitfire), ADU 467B (works rally car), and another. Richard still campaigns a restored 412 VC at Goodwood and other such events. The car we have aquired is pictured on the front cover of the 1970's book 'Tuning Standard Triumph's up to 1300cc' written by Richard Hudson-Evans, I got Richard (Lloyd) to autograph the front cover of my copy!

Interesting afternoon!

I spent yesterday afternoon in the company of Peter Clarke, he needs no introduction if you know anything at all about the Le Mans/Rally Spitfires and their subsequent history. If you don't then here's a very brief summary. Peter was a very active member of the experimental/racing department at Triumph throughout the Spitfire period. He helped build and maintain all of the 'works' cars but in particular his involvement was with the circuit cars. Peter went to both the '64 and '65 Le Mans, and Sebring, in fact he was working in the paddock virtually every time the circuit cars appeared, he is pictured more times in the many books on the subject than any of the drivers! After the works effort closed Peter went on to build and maintain Spitfires with firstly his old Triumph team mate Peter Cox, and then for the Richard Lloyd Gold Seal Racing effort. It didn't stop there as Peter has continued to work on Spitfires right up to the present day. This is the reason for this short piece from me, because yesterday I was helping Peter empty his lock-up of the years of racing Spitfire parts and memorabilia, as he has finally hung up his spanners and retired. Some real jems were unearthed, including the remnants of a 70X engine, a strut type rear suspension Spit chassis (as in the 1966 ADU 1B/ERW 412C Bradley racer), this was rescued by Karl who came along with me to help, and will probably end up under his race car. Another mystery was solved for me with the strange PI inlet manifold I found (pictured below). I have most of a 4 cyl PI set from the Spitfire racing days, but not the inlet manifolds, well I do now! We filled Peter's van to the roof, one of the last things to go in was a 70X tubular exhaust manufacturing jig, and we then baide our fairwell's and headed back to Canleys in Karl's Volvo and trailor combination loaded with our bit of treasure! Good luck in your retirement Pete, I'm sure the people of Wales may still hear the occasional clatter of forged pistons in a 70X on full chat yet!

Dream ticket!

As someone who has nurtured a lifelong passion for all things Triumph and more than a passing interest in Triumph's Le Mans and rallying Spitfire history I find myself more than ideally placed to talk to those that were there when it happened on a regular basis. Coventry might not be the most attractive of Cities but it's where our cars were built and developed, and still home to many of the guys who worked there. You can't pull into a petrol station in Cov without some old guy running over and wanting to share his story of working at the Standard. My wife drives a 2500 on a daily basis, this makes her a target for the stories too, I've lost count of the number of times she's used it as an excuse for being late into work!

I make no apologies for name dropping, but in the past couple of weeks we have had visits or I have spoken to Fred Nicklin (Triumph test driver, did most of the development driving on works Spitfires), Pete Clarke (put them together, and fixed them when they got broke), David Lloyd (experimental design and building), Bill Bradley (works driver, Le Mans and rally). Over the past couple of years I have been fortunate to make the aquaitance of Ray Henderson before his untimely death, he both visited us and I used to bother him on a regular basis about his recollections of things Triumph. Once the word got out locally that we had a Museum dedicated to Triumph, a steady stream of ex Triumph guys visit us and share their memories, fantastic! It's time to preserve this for the future before people forget, or worse history is re-written by those with a self interest.