Listers:
I have an even sadder (non-Triumph) trans conversion story. Until recently,
I owned a matched set of 1992 Porsche 968s. Mine was (and still is) a
6-speed coupe, used primarily at the racetrack. My wife liked the car but
wanted a convertible, so in 1997 I bought her an incredibly mint 1992 cabrio
with only 3000 miles from an estate. Because she couldn't shift, I bought a
tiptronic version for her.
The car was amazingly nice, but the 1992 version of the tiptronic was a real
dog. It took about 3 seconds off the 0-60 time, had a draggy feel, and too
few gears (4 instead of 6). It was in perfect order, just a primitive
design. She learned how to shift only a few weeks after we purchased the
tiptronic car. Eventually, we tried to replace the car with a similar
6-speed cabrio, but couldn't find anything remotely as nice.
I had a superb race prep shop to work with, so I asked the owner about
converting the car to a 6-speed. He told me it was possible, but had
probably never been attempted. He ballparked a price of $9-10,000. I bit
and we located a used trans from a wrecked 1993 model with 17,000 miles. We
got all the other parts together and they did the work over the winter. The
final cost, unfortunately, ballooned to $14,000. The good part is that the
conversion was perfect. There was absolutely no way to tell that the car
wasn't a factory 6-speed, and it never even needed an adjustment.
However, what we didn't anticipate was that the car was kind of boring even
with a 6-speed. After barely driving it for about 4 more years, she told me
to sell it and I had to discount it by a couple of thousand dollars because
of the mongrelization of the car. The good news is that I took the money
(intended as the down payment on a new kitchen) and purchased the TR6 PI with
plenty left over. The 6 is at least 6 times more fun, and even prettier.
Oh, well...
Michael Samuels
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