On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Lawrence G Miceli wrote:
> Andy,
>
> In response to the recent "find" I wonder whether anyone has taken the
> time to make a fiberglass replacement for the fiberboard dash in the
> Heralds? My own dash is in good shape, with the exception of around the
> demister vents, but is covered with vinyl as it has not visually "aged"
> well. It wold seem to be a great project for a supplier to support if
> there is a reasonable demand.
Most Herald dashes, with the exception of the 948 and Herald S models
(home market), were covered with a vinyl, and usually featured the wood
facia as well. It was just those early cars (and some later Herald
variants in Australia and perhaps elsewhere) that had the plain "exposed"
fibreboard in a flat black. A reproduction, though, might be nice. I'm
pretty sure the basic fibreboard piece is the same regardless of what car
it went to. The primary difference, of course, among them is where, what
side and how many holes there would be for instruments.
I don't know of anyone reproducing these at the present time.
> Also, it would be interesting to see what the values on these cars are
> today. There seems to be lots interest in the model but little on its
> value. I know Chad Jester (a frequent poster to this list) has been
> looking for a Herald/Vitesse for some time and he tells me that prices
> seem to be all over the place. What do the books say? Are they more or
> less valuable than a Spitfire?
As others have noted, values are usually less, at least in the U.S.
However, prices are getting higher all the time, especially for Herald and
Sports 6/Vitesse convertibles in the U.S. and elsewhere as Triumph folks
with families do rediscover these cars!
> Finally, I have seen the figure of 675 Vitesses imported, but does
> anybody know how many Heralds were imported to the US?
As I posted last week:
I added up the numbers I found in Robson's _Triumph Herald & Vitesse_ book
on total U.S. sales (see http://www.vtr.org/Herald/Herald-history.html)
and it comes to a bit over 24,000, including those 679 Sports 6
Convertibles...not all that bad compared to sales of other specific models
of Triumph. Also not bad when one considers that the U.S. marketing effort
was somewhat more focused on the sports car side of the Triumph line! Note
that almost half of the above figure (11,654 to be specific) is for the
Herald/Sports 1200 Convertible alone!
--Andy
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Andrew Mace, President and *
* 10/Herald/Vitesse (Sports 6) Consultant *
* Vintage Triumph Register *
* amace@unix2.nysed.gov *
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