[TR] TR Life Cycle

[terryrs at comcast.net]

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