[TR] "As it left the Factory" Wish us luck ????

[John Macartney]

This coming weekend (being Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee) an old and valued
friend from Standard-Triumph and I, have prepared his imported and superbly
restored TR250 for a special event. Sadly, we were committed to the car event
some months ago, so the invitation from The Palace to take part in the River
Thames Festival on the Royal Barge came just a tad too late. But never mind,
I'm sure Her Majesty will have a lovely day!
Anyway, back to the car event.
It's a very large one and the organisers are expecting over 2000 LBC's of all
makes and types to take part. Mike (my old chum) and I have been busy
preparing the 250 for its debut in a group called "As It Left The Factory."
Actually, we expect to find a lot of people jockeying for a concours prize in
the same category so with our own 'inside knowledge' from days of yore, the
250 has had the following work done to it:
 
1. The body has been completely
sprayed with industrial lanolin. This nicely covers the superb paint job and
gives the car a boring, dull, matt finish.We've been careful to ensure an
overspray of lanolin around the windscreen edge and glass side windows. All
this lanolin will easily wash off with warm water and a high pressure hose -
just as did the original stuff.
2. The soft top is covered with protective
plastic sheeting held in place with tape around the roof edges and to stop
flapping
3. All chromework has been covered in adhesive-backed white cotton
masking tape, while stainless or ally brightwork is covered with the lanolin
anyway
4. The rostyle hub caps and licence plates have been removed and are in
a box in the boot
5. The headlamps are out and waxed cardboard discs cover the
headlamp buckets. This is how the cars left the UK anyway and as the 250 now
has dip left halogen units instead of the dip right sealed beams, it's
entirely right the lights should be removed for 'authentic judging'
6. The red
and white indicator lenses are back in place to temporarily replace the yellow
ones of a TR5
7. Carpets in the footwells have been removed and are in another
box in the boot
8. All upholstery is covered with protective plastic
9. The
windscreen has replica (as far as our memories and Photoshop skills allow)
production / shipping / storage / anti-freeze labels - and all slapped on it
such a way you can hardly see out of it. In other words, just as it left the
factory.
10. To complete the picture, we'll be delivering it to the event on a
trailer - because that's exactly how the vast majority of export cars came off
the line and got themselves shipped to the docks.
 
There's only one thing
we've been unable to do and that's to run a set of 1968 Goodyear redlines to
earth - but hopefully no-one will notice. We think this plan is just a bit of
harmless fun-poking at a real PITA arrogant, know-all (who actually doesn't)
UK TR5 enthusiast we know will be there with both his grossly over-restored
cars who he maintains are always exhibited as factory fresh. The idea is to
park the 250 in between them if we can, while another friend with a Standard
10 Van, signwritten as The Standard Motor Company, Coventry in the original
grey/blue paint colour hopes to be very close at hand. Will we be successful?
I'll let you know next week.
 
Jonmac