Alex Van Zanten wrote:
>Dear all,
>Last year I finished the restoration of my '58 TR3a. My car was imported
>from the States in 1991. The last known owner lives in Abilene TX and
>the license was last issued 1983. I contacted the person over allmost a
>year ago using snail-mail. But received no reply. I am trying to gather
>as much historic info on my car as possible.
>The trace from the factory shows my car was shipped to the States late
>1958. It was shipped to CAL SALEC INC. In the Bill Piggot book Triumph
>by name, Triumph by nature to adds are reproduced from this company. The
>adress at that time was 1957 West 144th Street, Gardena, California.
>Can anybody give me information regarding this company? Does it still
>exist?
>Does anyone know someone who formerly worked there?
>I am considering trying to approach the previous owner again. This time
>by telephone. Do you have any suggestions on the approach to use, since
>he didn't react at all on my letter (and fotograph).
>Regards, Alex.
'>58 TR3a
>The Netherlands
Alex,
Cal Sales was the distributor for Triumphs for the western United States. The
buildings that housed the company still exist and are about 4 miles from my
home. The buildings are now owned by Ed Iskenderian, the well known camshaft
manufacturer. Up until a few years ago the original Triumph signage was still
up on the buildings. Now most of it is in my garage! Cal Sales Inc. was
originally known as Doretti Accessories and was started about 1950 by a young
lady named Dorothy Deen and her father Arthur Anderson, both sports car
enthusiasts, who owned a tubing and cable manufacturing company in Southern
California. Anderson had business dealings with Eric Sanders, the head of the
Tube Investments Group in England. Sports cars were very popular in Southern
California in the early '50s and Anderson decides to look into importing and
selling cars. Through Sanders he met Sir John Black, the chairman of Standard
Motor Co. (who owned Triumph) and they struck a deal to distribute Triumphs as
well as a new TR2 derived sports car to be built by a subsidiary of Tube
Investments named Swallow Coachbuilding. Swallow Coachbuilding had been spun
off of the original Swallow Sidecars (which became Jaguar) in 1935. The name
Doretti was sold to Sanders for use on the new car and the accessory company
was renamed Andorri Accessories, and the car distributorship was named Cal
Sales. This arrangement came at an opportune time for Triumph because their
proposed deal with Studebaker to distribute Triumph car had fallen through. The
TR2 and Doretti were introduced in California in January at a special show at
the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. There is a color picture of this show in
"Triumph by Name, Triumph by Nature" on page 145. In that photo are 5 TR2s and
2 Dorettis as well as Doretti and TR2 show chassis. The TR2s pictured are TS3,
4, 5, 7 and 12. The black TR2 in the center of the photo was delivered to Cal
Sales painted Olive Yellow with a Geranium interior and top. Upon seeing this,
Dorothy Deen sent this car (most likely TS12)
black. Just in front of the black car is a sign which reads "Cal Sales Inc.",
that sign is in my possession currently although it belongs to another fellow.
Dorothy Deen was astute at marketing and heavily advertised Triumph in the
west. In many of the early ads, the pretty blonde in the TR2 or TR3 is in fact
Dorothy! Dorothy was directly responsible for Triumph dropping some of the
early "designer" colors, such as Olive Yellow, Geranium and Ice Blue, and
introducing popular sports car colors such as red, yellow and light blue. In
1960, Standard-Triumph decided to take over distribution in the US and they
bought out Cal Sales. They used the Cal Sales Building for a short time, then
it was leased to a taxi company and finally sold to Iskenderian. Dorothy Deen
then became interested in aviation and purchased a Piper Aircraft dealership.
She is now retired and living in So. California.
As far as the history of your car is concerned, that may be difficult. Cars in
the US don't have log books as they do in the UK and state vehicle departments
will not give out information on request. The California DMV only maintains
computer records on inactive registrations for 4 years. You may want to see if
anyone on this list from the Abilene area may recognize the name of the owner.
Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Kurt Oblinger
54 TR2
54 Swallow Doretti
57 TR3
62 Vitesse 6 Convt
80 TR7 Spider
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