[TR] What cost to give up your Triumph? (Rhetorical?)

[Mark Hooper]

My note seems to have bounced off the list - so re-sending...

I don't buy into the argument. Fuel is about $4-$5 per US gallon in Canada so
not terribly cheap, but better than in UK I admit. I think my response is just
to take shorter runs rather than being pushed out of the hobby. I'm not
actually sure what fuel cost is in real dollars today compared to the
seventies. It was not all that cheap back then.

For a real comparison of operating cost versus buy-in value in a hobby one
should look to motorboating. There one can pick up a speedboat from $2,000 to
$250,000; more or less the same range as an old car to a big motorhome or
fancy vintage museum piece. (Of course one can also buy boats in the $100M
range but let's ignore that). For boats, fuel consumption is measured in
gallons/hour with figures ranging between 4-20 being usual on both the cheap
old boat and the new. EFI has helped, but pushing all that water out of the
way is not cheap, period. A short day spent on the water adds up to quite a
fee.

Compare that to a car getting 12-20 mpg verus the 50 mpg turboD. One probably
spends a premium of $10 of fuel for the nice(fun) ride at worst. Going boating
nails the driver for $100 extra for the same time period. Basically our small
cars run for almost no fuel at all when one is just going for a ride or a
small tour in the country compared to an outing on even a small boat. And
frankly, my newish city car gets 21 mpg average which is not a great deal
better than the TR6. i.e. savings = nil. The difference is not efficiency,
it's having 300hp under the hood versus 105.

Back to the real cost of the car hobby with a real vintage unit. If one starts
comparing the cost of a season's fuel for a runabout motorboat versus fueling
a vintage Bentley I think one would rapidly come to the conclusion that the
"consumable versus infrastructure" cost of the bentley is miniscule. Add in
the fact that the B is also appreciating in value (assuming one is not wearing
it out) and the reality is that the owner of the car is driving for much less
than it appears on the surface. If one compares appreciation in real-dollar
value of the car over the past twenty years versus fuel cost, then it is quite
possible that the hobby is at least paying for itself on the consumable
front.

Anyway, for your specific example, if money is not an issue and it's only a
question of philosophy then I would remind the gentleman of that fine old
expression "There are no pockets in a shroud". He can try to have himself
buried with the treasure, but soon after hark to the sound of shovels in the
night...

Best regards,

Mark