TR5 owner, 30 years today?

Taken at Rousham Park STIR (Standard Triumph International Rally) in the late 70's.

At least I think it's today? I still have the receipt somewhere at home for the day I picked up my TR5 back in 1977. Bought at the tender age of sixteen for the princely sum of 650 notes with tax & test, read it and weep! Imagine a nine year old 150bhp sportscar which was still one of the fastest things on the road in 1977 and approaching your seventeenth birthday (and your driving test). My first years insurance which was third party only (no fire & theft) cost me the same as the car. How I didn't kill myself in that first years motoring I'll never know!

Silverstone and aluminium tackle

We don't get many, if any, but yesterday we did. I am referring to one of those corporate hospitality day things courtesy of our insurance company a fine bunch of people called Towergate. Practice day for the Silverstone GP was the draw, well OK then count me in! Although I have been a lifelong fan of most things motorsport GP stuff has mostly passed me by. Indeed I seem to have a regular at Silverstone recently for everything other than GP. A particular highlight last year was the UK round of the Le Man 24 hour series. As a guest of a prominent Le Man pilot of yesteryear, and a prominent member of the BRDC to boot we spent most of the event sat in the BRDC pavilion scoffing superb buffet whilst hob knobing with the president of the BRDC himself a very pleasant chap. Unfortunately I just missed sharing a rolled salmon sarnie with Jackie Stewart, maybe next time. Anyways up, back to yesterday, did all the usual, walk up and down the pit lane in the lunch break. Sauntered through the paddock, catching Davina Coulthard moving faster than he ever does in a car to avoid the autograph hunters staking out his camper thing. The rest of the time was spent in the pit lane hospitality suite eating and drinking free stuff whilst flicking coctail sticks at the Ferrari drivers as they came back into the pits underneath us no more than 6 foot away. All in all an excellent day, specially as it only cost us the price of the petrol in the wifes 2.5 to get there and back.
Looks like things might be moving on the aluminium front again with several projects moving closer to the top of the pile of things to do. I hear a rumour that we might be blowing some cores next week for those elusive 6 cylinder heads in preperation for another couple of test castings, oh well we can but hope.

It still keeps coming out of the woodwork

Many thanks to Onne Van Der Spoel for donating some more original Triumph engineering drawings to the Canley Triumph Archive. Covering such diverse parts as the rear hub on a Herald, to the copper spherical shim in the 2000 differential. The total drawing collection is now into the hundreds, all saved by concerned individuals who thought they deserved a better fait than would normally have befallen the like. Onne for instance had offered his drawings to other collecting institutions with mixed results, one even told him that they would accept them only if he delivered them (personally) at his own expense, and that he must hand over some Morris drawings (that he wanted to keep for the time being) because they weren't 'rightfully' his to own!

How long before this steady stream of 'finds' drys up, it never fails to amaze us how much important stuff is still coming out of the woodwork 30, 40, and 50 years after the event.

I gone done it again

Thanks to Jason Chinn (I think!) and his eagle e-bay eye yet another Atlas has found it's way into our possession. It's a camper this time complete with pop up roof, cooker, sink, and rust. What has come over me? I could virtually have the pick of any of Triumph's finest but I've come over all silly for these ugly, useless, remnants of Triumph's (really Standard's) darkest hour?