[TR] TR6 - one of the first ten made

[John Macartney]

I've been going through a raft of old 35mm slides and pix recently as part
of 'home downsizing' and throwing out things I'll never need, use or view
again. Came across the attached picture (taken by Mum on a Kodak instamatic)
of me at the wheel of the first 1969 US Spec demo car we had in the London
showroom. As I lived furthest from London in those days, it usually fell to
me to 'break in' the US demonstrators and get 1000 miles on them over a
weekend. Not so bad for a TR or GT6 - not such good news in a Spitfire with
its reduced power that got progressively lower over the years. 
I came across this pic of UDU 69 G as I certainly remember it was in the
first ten off the line in terms of commission number sequence - though it
could have been earlier or later in actual production order.
IMHO, what you see is not necessarily what you get as 10 months into its
continuous use as a demo car at the London showroom, we sold it to a guy
based at one of the US Air Bases in the UK. Tragically, he was killed in it
later on the day he took delivery when the car hit a patch of ice at
(alleged) high speed and got wrapped around a concrete bridge support on the
A1(M). The car was totalled and it had to come back to the London Service
Division so we could prove to UK Customs that the unpaid tax we'd collected
on sale could be paid over. After that, it went in the crusher and the
licence number from a batch of special numbers allocated for export cars
only was cancelled. Once used in the UK, they aren't re-issued unless you
want to pay an outrageous sum for a 'cherished' number. I digress. At the
time of the crash, there was nothing anyone could do with a car that had
been bent into a very convincing 'U' shape?
Spool forwards 30 odd years and a car purporting to be UDU 69 G came up for
sale at an auction in the UK a few years back and offered by a highly
regarded and prestigious auction house. Accompanying the advert, was a
stream of complete drivel written about it. There's no doubt that when it
was in my custody for 'running in' (as we called it) and throughout it's
time in the London showroom it was a US spec car with carbs, high back
seats, overdrive and disc wheels. In every respect, it was a brand new car
and it stayed in our demo vehicle park at the showroom for almost the next
year. When it was offered for auction, the vendors made totally misleading
statements about it having been a TR6 UK spec development car used at the
factory for upwards of two years after build and had undergone 'extensive
testing' throughout Europe. Interesting, since when offered for sale at the
auction, it had been converted to Right hand steer, Lucas fuel injection,
had chrome wire wheels - and it was "exactly as original and as bought from
the factory" in 1971.  
Is there a moral here? Perhaps. Never totally believe the claims of any car
salesman - whoever he / she / firm might be. I know. I used to be one :)

Jonmac


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