HCR latest!

6.40 AM and I'm still here on my own at Canley Classics! I'm sure we had one or two entrants back here by this time on last years HCR (or 20 Counties Challenge as it was then?).
Everyone got away OK last night, OK so there were a few last minute fixes, like a starter motor change in the workshop on a nice Spitfire. Then there was the PI strip and check in the car park. Oh and I nearly forgot the knackered quill shaft extension on another saloon requiring that particular team to be split up and share with other crews.
Thanks to Fred Nicklin (former Triumph Test Driver) who came along to wish the crews the best. Fred spent a couple of hours with us moving amongst the various crews/cars chatting as he went. Fred is no stranger to Club Triumph events as he did the inaugural 1966 Round Britain Reliability Run as a 'works' driver, in a 'works' car (press car I think?). Fred went on to do several other RBRR's with the 'works'. Tim Bancroft the present organiser of the RBRR chatted to Fred about those formative runs.
In typical CT endurance event last minute crew formation style a customer of ours who had come along to collect his Vitesse convertable quickly formed a crew with some 'spare' bods and entered, great stuff!
I wonder how long before someone turns up? That reminds me best fire up Betty the tea urn.

Stolen Ginetta

I know its a bit of a long shot but if you hear or see anything of Tonys Ginetta let him (Tony works here part time),or us know. Tony is understandably gutted, keep em pealed!

The following is Tonys description:

This G27 was built from a kit and has competed in the Ginetta Speed
Championship with some success for the last 5 years or so.

The car was taken on a Brian James trailer from Solihull in the West
Midlands on Friday night.

Spec:
4.5 Cross-drilled Rover V8 with early french blue rocker covers.
2x White 4 into 1 tubular exhaust manifolds
4x 13" x 10" Compomotive ML's (Scratched rims due to tight trailer fitment)
Fitted with slicks. (from memory 2 x Hoosier, 2 x Avon)
Rover SD1 gearbox with close ratios
4x Weber DCNF 38 carbs, (matching serial numbers)
Bespoke one-piece tubular steel INLET manifold, painted red.

If anyone sees or hears anything which may be relevent please PM me.

The car actually loosk somewhat more tatty than in the photo, here is what
it looked like when stolen...



Thanks,
Tony

Life after Mars!

Well that's it, all done and dusted, I think? Clare spent a further two days up in Manchester this week with the 2.5 on location with the Life on Mars production people. Filming went on well into the night on Monday (finished about 1 AM!) necessitating a night in the local Travel Lodge so that she could be back on location bright and early on Tuesday. Apparently the 2.5 was required most of Tuesday for filming, again requiring a 'late one', Clare not starting off back down South till gone 10 PM bless her. A minor scare occurred whilst she was driving home with a fairly major missfire spoiling the trip home. AA card at the ready she pressed on with the missfire getting worse by the mile. Finally at just after midnight she limped back onto the drive, totally shattered! To late to do anything about it then I decided to swap motors in the morning and limp the 6 miles or so to work in the dark and empty roads. From that short trip I had deduced that the fault was ignition related and probably something to do with the distributor baseplate/vacuum operation. A quick check later in the daylight confirmed a detached condensor/LT wire from the contact set changed the week before, no names no pack drill! Coincidently exactly the same thing happened to me a day or two before in a customers GT6 on the way to an MOT.
Anyway back to life, back to reality, whats going on in and around Canleys I hear you ask?
Finally getting around to finishing that Museum extension we started last year. You know what it's like, builder go's off to do a quick extension for someone else, don't see builder for a couple of months, builder comes back in the middle of the winter when funds are tight so nothing gets done. Anyway it's all back on, all the roofing materials turned up here yesterday, builder is due to make a start in a week or so, exciting stuff!
Also with a healthy amount of excess funds floating around we have decided to commission a nice set of fancy wrought iron gates for the car park/driveway entrance. They should be here and fitted towards the end of next week, should give a much more handsome vista to our frontage.
After being effectively closed for the past two or three years the workshop is back in operation, we might even put a telephone back in! Don't all rush to try and book your car in though as I have already filled the place with customers cars! Have now done 4 MOT's in the past few days so am well aquainted with the new computer generated MOT system and it's teething problems! Sid and Tony my old mates at D & R's (our preffered MOT station for the past 15 odd years) have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, and they don't like it one little bit!
Going to spend a fair bit of money in the workshop over the next couple of months, so need to clear a few cutomers cars to give us room for improvements. Always fancied a rolling road, that day can't be to far off!

Brummie Dave reports from Mars!

As mentioned in the last post Dave & Julie kindly took Clares 2.5 up to Stockport yesterday for further filming on the Life on Mars set. The following pictures are his (thanks Dave!). Apparently the GT6 was hammered up and down the road and handbraked turned by a stunt driver until it threw its teddy out of the pram and boiled over in spectacular fashion! Bloody lightweight (as in feable, not pared of excess weight!) GT6's, I told them they could thrash the 2.5 to their hearts content if they wished, there's no way they would cane it any harder than Clare does!

The Plot Thickens!

Anyway back to the plot! Clare set off at 4.15 this morning for the LOM set in Stockport. She was not best pleased at having to get up at that sort of hour! Seems her 2.5 is going to have more of a starring roll than first envisaged. Originally it was only going to be car park dressing in a background shot. Now it's going to have one of the actors using it in an undercover sting. Because of that it now has to go back up to Stockport on Monday when unfortunately we are away on holiday. Step forth a knight in shining armour, Brummie Dave and his missus Julie who have agreed to take the 2.5 up for further filming. Apparently Julie is going to get her best 70's gear out of mothballs in the hope of a walk on part?
If you didn't watch the first series of Life on Mars find out more about it here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/lifeonmars/

Charm offensive!

Did you watch that retro BBC police drama set in 1973 'Life on Mars' earlier in the year? I was hooked mostly for the old mota's being hooned around, but the storylines wern't to bad, and the photography/feel of the thing took me right back to that flares and tank top time. Craig our web guy kept on at me when it was showing about mentioning it in these blogs, I never got around to it then. Seems it was quite popular with an average of 6 million viewers per episode. Had a guy in the shop on Saturday who is responsible for getting the cars that are used in that (and other TV/Film stuff), so we had a good old natter about things old mota. He was telling me that the prices for MK111 Cortina's had shot up since that first series aired. I'm not surprised, the 'star' Cortina in LOM certainly looked the part being ragged around Manchester. Anyway seems Robert is a bit of a closet Triumph fan, and its mostly down to him that we saw a Vitesse convertible at the start of the first episode, a 2000 later in the series, and a 1500 saloon (Toledo?) as well. I was bemoaning the general lack of Triumph's on the gogglebox, so we have hatched a plan between us to do something about it! Robert explained the usual problems with securing suitable 4 wheeled 'actors' are lack of notice, dealing with the chain of command in owners club's (and the time penalties that brings about), unrealistic demands/fees asked of owners, and finding the right colour (seems they just can't use certain colours?). After a nanoseconds thought I suggested that we might be able to help! We have 30 + Triumph's here a good proportion of which could be made roadworthy given 48 hours notice, we have one or two of most models, and a decent spread of colours. Better than that we are not confined by 9 to 5 jobs and the need to book time off so we could be 'on set' with minimum fuss given the word. I think the thing that swung it though was our offer of our time/Triumphs for free, we are not fussed about the financial side of it, we just want to see more Triumph's on the screen, and raise the general public awareness of this otherwise dieing marque.
Didn't think anymore of it until the phone rang yesterday afternoon, it was Robert enquiring if we could be in Manchester tommrow (Thursday) morning with that blue 2.5 saloon he saw on our car park! They are about to start filming the new series of LOM and need a couple of extra cars, could we help? No problem Clare said she will take it up as its a good excuse for a shopping trip, the eldest showed interest when shopping was mentioned so she's going as well. That leaves me to get the car ready this morning, only a couple of things to do like changing the present number plates for ones that don't have www.canleyclassics.com along the bottom for some more historically acurate examples! Oh and I might have to chuck a travel rug over those huge speakers and inertia reels on the rear parcel shelf!