Greetings fellow listers,
If you have no interest in Triumph's 75th Anniversary in Gaydon, hit the
delete key now. Just got back from a wonderful, albeit somewhat damp two
week holiday in Britian.
I was at the show on Sunday only. I really was absoultely amazed in the
number of cars. I mean, it was truly a sight to be seen. Cars in almost
every runnable condition, from concourse winners to those just scraping by
MOT every year.
In the States, Triumph mean TR's and Spits. In the UK, Triumph means sedans
and the occasional estate, and some TR's and Spits. The number of
Vitesse's, Heralds, 2.5PI's, and Stags was amazing. Cars you just do not
see very often (if at all!) in the States.
I must admit, the show of cars outside the museum was so captivating, I did
not spend as much time in the museum as I wanted to. The Triumphs in the
museum were quite nice, and John Macartney and the folks there are doing an
excellent job keeping the history alive.
I kept my eyes open, as did our hosts and my wife, but we never ran into
John Macartney, sorry John. Our hosts are not car people, so they did get a
bit bored. After a while we parked them in the beer tent while we enjoyed
the show, but we had to leave around 4:30.
I intend to update my website soon with a full account of the occasion,
along with a bunch of pictures, so I will turn off verbose mode now and
comment on the highlights.
The great showing of the old 1800 Roadsters;
TR2 with custom fiberglass tonneau;
A couple Doves (TR4's made into GT's under authority (?) of Triumph);
Quite a few cars re-patriotriated to the UK, with left hand drive;
Met lister Leon Guyet and saw got the full show of his Vitesse. His car is
nothing short of stunning;
The number of surrey tops, looked to be a MUCH more popular option in the
UK than the States;
The trip from the London area up the M40 (?) at 90MPH in our host's BMW
318i passing all kinds of Triumphs on the road. The trip back from the show
being passed by TWO 2.5PI's that were going 90-100MPH; (everyboby drives
80 to 90 on the motorways over there!) and
Meeting the lists very own Rich Jackson and his girlfriend, and lifting a
pint in the beer tent. (Hi Rich, loved the t-shirt...cheers)
On a side note, my wife and I spent the second week of our holiday in
Britains Lake District. We spent Thursday in the town of Pooley Bridge,
where the local chapter of the TSSC was setting up for a weekend event. As
we were traveling south the next day were unable to attend their event, but
we had a super conversation with the gentleman putting up signs. One
humorous note, he described a game they play, a test of skill where they
toss wet sponges (?) from a distance at a target. Wanna guess what the
target is???
Yup, an MG... ;-)
I will announce to the list when I have the website update done, will be a
little while, I am afraid. Two weeks vacation put me behind quite a bit!
Cheers!
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Henry Frye - thefryes@iconn.net - Connecticut, USA
TR3B TCF1927 L Driver
TR250 CD690 L Soon to be Driver
TR250 CD8096 L Someday Driver
TR250 CD1074 L Some Brave Soul Other Than Me
Will Make This A Driver!
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