[TR] TR Life Cycle

terryrs at comcast.net terryrs at comcast.net
Fri Sep 23 08:56:04 MDT 2016


List messages about how long people have owned cars leads to another thought.

My '59 Triumph was first purchased in 1960 and driven until 1975, when it was parked in a sad shed to sit morose and inches from the crusher with floors completely rusted out, wheels frozen tight, and with decades of dried racoon feces coating the engine.  In 2004 I picked it up for $500, the winner among those others who had interest because I was the one who figured out how to loosen the wheels to get it rolling and how to use a come-along and tow chain to plough it uphill through the mud to a trailer.

Love breeds determination, I suppose.

Took three years to get it on the road again, so mathematically I've been driving it 44% of it's life.  I guess that means in two more years I'll be the "primary" owner of a car that's 57 years old?

I can't imagine the histories of cars on this list, how close so many came to the scrap heap, and what lenghts you all have gone to to keep them alive.  I suppose to it's a bit like thinking of our ancestors in the medieval period surviving famines, plagues and feudal battles to leave us by extraordinary chance the opportunity to be here.  

Except I wouldn't have bothered with the TR3 in the first place if I hadn't researched and found that Moss, The Roadster Factory, and Victoria British supplied almost everything needed to bring it back to life.  

Terry Smith, '59 TR3A  TS 58667
New Hampshire


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