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New York Times Online Article LBC #1

To: triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: New York Times Online Article LBC #1
From: Jon & Susan <jsmessier@mail.earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 21:53:39 -0500
Hello listers,

While at work today, one of my co-workers alerted me to the following 
articles from the NY Times; thought I would share and pass them along to you.

Jon
==================================

New York Times Online
June 7, 2002

Blood, Sweat, Tears and a Lot of Oil Leaks
By JIM MOTAVALLI


KATHY MANGAN, a freelance writer in Hagerstown, Md., has owned her 
British-made 1980 Triumph TR8 for 18 years, so there really was no excuse 
for her thinking she could drive it without incident to Boston last 
December. After being stranded regularly by the car throughout her 
ownership, Ms. Mangan should have known what to expect.

Here's what happened: The car refused to start without jumper cables, a 
familiar experience for Triumph owners. One block out, the passenger door 
suddenly flew open and refused to close again. Ms. Mangan's mechanic wasn't 
surprised to see the car limp into the service bay.

When she set out again, the TR8 made it at least several miles before 
starting to lose power. Opinions differed as to whether the fuel line or 
distributor was to blame, but everyone agreed the car was not going to make 
it to Boston without a tow.

Ms. Mangan's story is a familiar one among British-car owners. In the 
1950's and 60's  before the Japanese had a foothold in America  Triumphs, 
MG's, Austin-Healeys, Lotuses and Jaguars ruled the import lots. In the 
mid-60's, MG and Triumph alone were selling 60,000 cars a year in the 
United States, 85 percent of their global volume.

The cars were rakish, and fun to drive compared with the bloated American 
land barges of the time, but nobody ever called them reliable. The tiny 
four-cylinder engines with their adventurous Skinner Union carburetors ran 
on an idiosyncratic schedule, and quality was so poor that parts flew off 
regularly. The roofs often leaked water, which puddled with the oil 
dripping from the engine block.

But there is a saving grace about British sports cars. Even while their 
owners are becoming stranded, they love them. "There's something wonderful 
about not knowing how your trip will turn out," Ms. Mangan said. There are 
thousands still on American roads, even though the last of the true British 
sports cars were imported in the early 80's.

What most British-car owners share (other than repair bills) is a stoic's 
sense of gallows humor. A common joke like, "Why do Triumph TR7's have fog 
lights? To light up the tow rope," makes a small point about British 
technology, but says boatloads about British character.

Before wisely buying a Mazda Miata, Tod Bryant, a Norwalk, Conn., 
photographer, was a serial British car owner. He took delivery of his 
first, a brand-new Triumph-engine Morgan, in Europe in 1967. To his 
chagrin, he discovered that the car had no outside door handles and he 
couldn't reach in because it didn't have optional sliding window "side 
curtains." He had also expected the car to come with a working clutch, but 
within weeks he was forced to set off in pouring rain to return it to the 
dealer.

"You had to secure about 20 of those ridiculous lift-dot fasteners around 
the windshield to get the top up, and it still leaked like a sieve," Mr. 
Bryant recalled grimly. "Water was blowing through the side curtains and 
around the windshield. The heater was useless, of course." The latter is an 
absolute given in countless British cars. One Jaguar owner marvels at the 
engineering feat that allowed the car's engine to overheat in winter while 
maintaining Arctic temperatures in the cabin.

When Mr. Bryant returned to the United States in 1968, he replaced the 
Morgan with a 1959 Austin-Healey "Bug-Eye" Sprite that, he said, "just died 
on me." Next was a Triumph TR3B that in only a few months of ownership went 
through one front suspension, two coils, two voltage regulators, a clutch, 
a rebuilt head and a brake master cylinder. "I finally sold it for $100," 
he said.

The last straw was another Triumph, a 1967 TR4A. "It popped out of second 
gear, and you could put your finger through the frame in several places," 
he said. The rear suspension, featuring the diabolical lever arm shock  an 
outmoded British shock absorber that survived in some models through the 
1980's  was regularly shaken to bits by potholes. "Every weekend I'd be 
underneath it, rebuilding the suspension while a crowd of street people 
gave me unsolicited advice," he said.

Is Mr. Bryant cured? Not at all. "If I had a garage, I'd buy a British car 
tomorrow, probably another TR3," he said.

In the purgatory of British cars, much of the blame is heaped on the famous 
manufacturer Joseph Lucas, also known as "the Prince of Darkness" and "the 
Father of the Intermittent Windshield Wiper."

But in trying to set right the many problems in a British car, the hapless 
American owner happens upon the fact that the British have their own names 
for everything, many of which sound like they first appeared in 
"Winnie-the-Pooh." Does the repair call for a wrench? It's a spanner to 
them. Trouble under the hood? It's the bonnet. Trying to find the trunk 
release? Sorry, that's the boot. A few other choice translations: fender 
equals wing, the rear window is a backlight, the glove box is a cubby, an 
electrical ground is earth, gas is petrol, a turn signal is an indicator, 
and a muffler is a silencer. When some drivers hear that the word for "ball 
joint" is "trunnion" and a generator is a dynamo, they must feel like 
giving up.

Not everyone agrees with the poor reputation of British cars. "There are no 
bad cars, only bad owners," said Jeff Burns, whose garage, Motorhead LTD, 
in Fairfax, Va., specializes in them. "If you restore a British sports car 
to a proper standard, it will be an excellent daily driver." The stories of 
failing carburetors and fading electrical systems, he said, are a form of 
folklore fostered by dodgy, unrestored cars and by poorly performing Asian 
replacement parts.

"If they sit for a long time, things start to corrode and Lucas gets the 
blame," said Mr. Burns, somewhat defensively.

Ian Young, who once ran Triumph and Austin dealerships in Niagara Falls, 
Ontario, agrees that British cars have been unfairly slagged. "It's like 
the Corvair," he said, referring to the much-maligned 1960's Chevy. "Once 
it was tarred and feathered, nobody would acknowledge its virtues."

Pierre Kanter, a Frenchman who now lives in New York, sees few virtues in 
British cars. For that reason, he takes a perverse pleasure in buying them 
in the United States and sending them back where they came from. Mr. Kanter 
sells the cars to collectors in Britain, as well as on the Continent. He 
was particularly glad to see the last of a 1967 Series 1 Jaguar E-Type he 
owned for seven months. "It was orgasmic to look at, but it only ran for 
one of the seven months," Mr. Kanter said. "I've never had so much trouble 
with a car. Just try keeping three carburetors in tune. It leaked oil, the 
gauges never worked, and the Lucas electrical system was a nightmare." The 
E-Type shipped off to Belgium and is now said to be making some European's 
life miserable.

Underneath it all, however, Mr. Kanter admits to being just another 
helpless addict. "If I had a choice between a Miata and an MG," he said, "I 
would take the MG."

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