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Re: Piggot

To: Triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Piggot
From: zoboherald@aol.com
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 09:53:18 -0500
-----Original Message-----
From: fred thomas <frede.thomas2@verizon.net>

I have never understood why a lot of T/R owners quote from Bill Piggot, 
he is
a writer making $$$ from our cars, he was not a factory emplyee (we 
have them
on this list though) and his books are filled with "misinformation", I 
also
believe we have list members with more knowledge about our cars, yes 
and most
of you are aware of these members, just my thoughts on facts about our 
LBC's.
"FT"

==AM==
<rant>

I have a lot of respect for Bill Piggot...perhaps more so than for a 
number of other Triumph "experts" who have authored books on same (even 
some ex-employees). One significant problem I've seen with his 
perspective and that of most of these other authors as well is that 
their viewpoint is decidely home market. That's fine to a point, but 
what's so often lacking is much of any understanding of the other 
markets for which these cars were built. In the case of most of the 
postwar "sporting" Triumphs, the vast majority of these cars were built 
for and sold in the US.

In fairness, even Standard-Triumph was guilty of this slanted 
viewpoint, with owners and other technical manuals and literature that 
often ignored the features that were specific to our market. And that's 
been perpetuated in recent years by those who have chosen to reprint 
some of these manuals. For example, S-T did create a US market-specific 
owners manual for the introduction of the original 948cc series Herald 
in the US in 1960, but they never did the same for the later 1200 
series, nor did the Workshop Manuals show details specific to US-spec 
cars. S-T did also create specific owners manuals for the early 
Spitfires, but that fact seems to have been ignored by those who have 
reprinted owners manuals in recent years. I've yet to find a reprint of 
the early Spitfire owners manual that has a correct wiring diagram for 
the US-spec cars.

One other observation about books written by the Piggots, Robsons and 
others. Apparently neither they nor anyone else ever carefully 
proofreads the manuscript and photo captions before the books go to 
print. It's incomprehensible to me how some of the more absurd errors 
("misinformation") found their way into final copies.

</rant>

--Andy  Mace

*Mrs Irrelevant: Oh, is it a jet?
*Man: Well, no ... It's not so  much of a jet, it's more your, er, 
Triumph Herald engine with  wings.
 -- Cut-price Airlines Sketch, Monty Python's Flying Circus  (22)

Check out the North American Triumph Sports 6 (Vitesse 6) and Triumph 
Herald Database at its new URL: <http://triumph-herald.us>


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