Back on May 1, Chris talked about the modifications that many of us
have done to our TR's, and showing them. I know that unless I take
the time to tear my Spit down to the frame, I will never again see
any hardware from a concours.
I have in the past convinced myself that a restoration takes two
things, time and money. If you do it yourself, it won't take as
much money, and if someone else does it, it won't take as much time.
But, it will always take money. I am now coming to grips with the
thought that the Grape will probably never under go a full frame
off, ground up restoration. The primary reason is that I can't bear
to not drive the car in the summer. It's too much fun. Even if my
wife and I do nothing more than drive into town for an ice cream at
the local Dairy Queen.
On the other hand, I am coming to the conclusion that I will probably
tow the Grape to Rockford and Armagh this summer. The primary reason is
that my wife can't hack a long distance trip in the Spit. Since she
is already planning to take her car, I might as well take the truck and
tow the car.
Back to the concept of personalizing our lbcs. Many of us, especially
those of us who have owned the same car for an extended time frame,
have come to realize that there were certain things that Triumph never
included on the cars in the interest of saving costs. We have seen fit
to add them later. Other changes came about because of improvements
that later cars had, and we saw that they could improve our cars as
well. In this vein, I am thinking of the radiator on the '73-'74 Spit.
Earlier and later cars had larger rads, and after watching my temp gauge
max itself out, I decided the grape needed a larger rad. If we show cars
thus modified, we are penalized, but the key is that these cars were made
to be driven, and driven in a spirited manor. One of the local TR3
owners, after spending a couple of years redoing his car, prefers to
drive the 3 since he knows that if something breaks, he can fix it on
the spot. He put more miles on the 3 than on his much newer yank tanks
in the years following the rebuild. And, he still won concours with it.
Both class and best in show. It can be done, but it takes time.
Doug Mitchell
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