I have tried several times to send this but keep getting lost in cyberspace.
I'm pretty sure html is off. Any other suggestions?
kg
-----Original Message-----
From: kengano [mailto:kengano@advant.com]
Sent: Saturday, April 10, 1999 9:29 AM
To: owner triumphs; Gary F. Pfister; Gary F. Pfister SOSA account; Mark
Keehan; Robert Burger; Ron J. Thompson; Tom Johnson
Subject: FW: Back on line (long)
-----Original Message-----
From: kengano [mailto:kengano@advant.com]
Sent: Friday, April 09, 1999 1:59 PM
To: owner triumphs
Subject: Back on line (long)
Well, after ten days in the motherland, we are back home and back on list.
What a wonderful trip. Highlights included the British Heritage Motor Trust
Museum in Gaydon, the Museum of British Road Transport in Coventry, the
Jaguar Daimler (sp) Heritage Collection at Browns Lane just outside Coventry
and a "personalized" tour of the Aston - Martin final assembly "factory" in
Banbury.
Gaydon was the first day we were in the Midlands. They have on the order of
200 vehicles, primarily every thing from the Rover Group. Highlights (for
me) included a nicely restored TR3 (Jon: What's the commission number of
that car? It had pre TS60000 stamping and post TS6000 windscreen fasteners,
just like mine), the last spitfire and a "perfect" model 10. (Standard
badge). The experiential displays were neat and the Land Rover
demonstration was well worth the price of the ticket
Far and away the most complete display had to be the Museum of British Road
Transport in Coventry. It included not only our beloved sports cars, but
really all forms of transport, including bicycles, trucks, buses, displays
of the various crafts and war damage and most notably, Thrust II, complete
with a video presentation of the lead up to the world record attempts.
Highlight included a very early TR2 and a very nice model 8/20.
Jaguar was tucked into an end of one day and probably was the biggest
disappointment (like any of it was really a disappointment!) There were few
vehicles there and almost none were marked. They did have the first XJ220,
at least one ('77 I think) LeMans winner and what I thought was the c or d
type Lemans winner, but it didn't carry a placard. It was necessary to call
ahead to "book in" a time and even though the museum is open until 6:00 p.
m. the gift shop was closed before we got to it at 4:30. Looking through
the window I decided that was ok as the only thing I was interested in
anyway was a necktie and it was priced at 60 pounds! I guess don't know my
Jag's well enough to have a true appreciation. Seeing a 40 acre lot full of
brand new 8's though almost made the drive worthwhile!
The absolute best (aside from the soccer games and the beers, but those are
other lists!) was the tour of the Aston Martin factory. It arose by pure
chance. As it turned out, our host's brother worked for A-M. When we were
calling around trying to arrange the museum visits she mentioned that
brother MIGHT be able to arrange a tour. Needless to say, I jumped right on
that. We have known these folks for 15+ years (much longer than my Triumph
interests) and I remembered that brother was a tradesman for Jaguar. Well,
as it turns out he was pulled off the unheard of British class jump and is
now Senior Design Engineer for A-M on the Vantage v12 project. We got not
only a FULL tour, but the opportunity to hear the V12 run and to see the
first (production - apparently the ones reviewed in the press have been
"pre-production" models) V12 on the assembly line and see the Jag XJ220 that
the A-M engineers recently wrecked. (Unintentionally, the story was that
several of his mates were sweating their jobs over that one!). He also
loaded us up with factory literature and tee-shirts. It's always good to
know some one in the business! What surprised me most was how small the
factory really is. Although the V12 is strictly a A-M product, it is cast
and assembled off premises, and the body shells are manufactured by another
concern, so all Banbury does is final assembly. The whole factory was no
larger than a big American dealers service department. They turn out 12
cars per week and each is "to order." They were in the process of
converting from in line 6 to V12 production, so the production line was slow
and almost empty, but we were able to walk around freely and talk to
everybody. It was neat.
All in all, the vacation of a lifetime!
Ken Gano
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