David has also loaned the museum some of his extensive photo archive of his days at Triumph, a keen photographer and friends with Triumphs own chief photographer, his collection is interesting to say the least!
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Special visitors
Every now and again we are privileged to receive a 'special guest' from Triumphs illustrious past. Of course it helps being on the outskirts of Coventry where a good proportion of Triumph ex workers still live. Yesterday was no exception, on his second visit to us was former Triumph experimental worker David Lloyd. David was involved in some of Triumphs most exciting projects including being the actual guy who made the bucks (tooling) and the actual glassfibre deck and hump for the Macau Spitfire residing in our museum. You may know that we have decided to return the Macau to its 1965 spec which includes reshaping the hump that was put on the car in the 1980's (Kas Kastner removed the original hump in 1967). David has kindly agreed to don his overalls and help with this work, how about that! Forty years will separate David's efforts by the time this work is completed, but worth the wait!
David has also loaned the museum some of his extensive photo archive of his days at Triumph, a keen photographer and friends with Triumphs own chief photographer, his collection is interesting to say the least!
David has also loaned the museum some of his extensive photo archive of his days at Triumph, a keen photographer and friends with Triumphs own chief photographer, his collection is interesting to say the least!
Friday, July 30, 2004
New car for the Triumph museum!
Sorry about the picture quality, but I thought I would capture the scene last night at 9.30 when the oldest Herald saloon returned to Coventry. We have been away for a couple of days driving the Chicane with car trailor down to the South coast and then back up to Frome in Somerset to collect our recent purchase courtesy of e bay. As far as we know this is the oldest Herald saloon in existance being chassis number G11, engine number G8E, and well worthy of saving for the museum. The Chicane again performed as expected with no drama's, this car never ceases to impress, it clocks up big, big miles, uses no petrol, never goes rusty, and all on a diet of neglect, cheap unleaded, and never being garaged since we have had it! Currently the mileage is at about 225,000 miles (it has kph clock so I did a quick conversion), the engine has never been apart, and it has had only 2 oil changes in the last 125,000 miles (Halfords fully synthetic). There are no signs of valve seat recession, and it starts without a rattle, but if you really cane it hard you can just get a whif of smoke out the exhaust, indicating a little wear in the valve guides. I just had a thought, that 948 Herald probably went faster on the trailor last night a couple of times than it ever managed to do under its own power, oops!
Monday, July 12, 2004
Last Stafford?
No blogs over the weekend and yesterday, sorry, been a bit busy.
Had a good time at Stafford (TSSC International) as usual, both on a trading level, but also on a social level. Same old faces in the camping area, up for the 'crack', and wanting to party!
Fewer people about this year, and the number of traders was down again, one of the larger traders was noticeably absent. At one point on the Saturday morning it threw it down with rain, so one would suppose most of the people on the site would have been in the main hall, if so numbers attending was depressingly low. Gone are the days when the top car park was full to brimming with the parking by model, a feature of Stafford that I used to enjoy a good luck around in my breaks from the stall.
Still can't complain about what we as a company achieved, managed to get two of our cars there for the displays, the Macau Spit (parked next to Bernie's lovely recreation) and the GT6 race car (thanks to John Muggleton for towing it up). We also did well on the stall, helped by the lack of competition undoubtedly, but I like to think also by our wide spread of new products and keen prices!
No something needs to be done sharpish about the dwindling numbers, and a move to a new venue seemed to be top of the agenda for most of those who expressed an opinion to me over the weekend. It's a pity because Stafford is really handy for us being just up the road, and the facilites are good, excusing the toilets on the Sunday morning!
The Saturday night 'do' didn't have the same sparkle as other years, fewer people in fancy dress, and the band? We cleared of comparatively early back to the tents for some cheese toasties done on the barbie, and some more beer.
Thanks to Jason and Zoe for their stirling work over the w/end, and to Craig and Sarah for bedecking our stand in advertising stuff.
Had a good time at Stafford (TSSC International) as usual, both on a trading level, but also on a social level. Same old faces in the camping area, up for the 'crack', and wanting to party!
Fewer people about this year, and the number of traders was down again, one of the larger traders was noticeably absent. At one point on the Saturday morning it threw it down with rain, so one would suppose most of the people on the site would have been in the main hall, if so numbers attending was depressingly low. Gone are the days when the top car park was full to brimming with the parking by model, a feature of Stafford that I used to enjoy a good luck around in my breaks from the stall.
Still can't complain about what we as a company achieved, managed to get two of our cars there for the displays, the Macau Spit (parked next to Bernie's lovely recreation) and the GT6 race car (thanks to John Muggleton for towing it up). We also did well on the stall, helped by the lack of competition undoubtedly, but I like to think also by our wide spread of new products and keen prices!
No something needs to be done sharpish about the dwindling numbers, and a move to a new venue seemed to be top of the agenda for most of those who expressed an opinion to me over the weekend. It's a pity because Stafford is really handy for us being just up the road, and the facilites are good, excusing the toilets on the Sunday morning!
The Saturday night 'do' didn't have the same sparkle as other years, fewer people in fancy dress, and the band? We cleared of comparatively early back to the tents for some cheese toasties done on the barbie, and some more beer.
Thanks to Jason and Zoe for their stirling work over the w/end, and to Craig and Sarah for bedecking our stand in advertising stuff.
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