[TR] A new book with an interesting Standard-Triumph flavour

[stagbytriumph at triumphstagclub.org]

Oi Mate, 

 

Happy you have knocked out another biological attack!

  

Me thinks your own memoir is overdue?  

 

“Shadow” was very good, many have not read the Crocus, Turn Left at the Pacific sort of puts things in some order, but let’s have a Jonmac Memoir in your own right, eh?

 

What say all?

 

Glenn aka StagByTriumph

 

From: Triumphs <triumphs-bounces at autox.team.net> On Behalf Of JOHN MACARTNEY
Sent: Monday, April 6, 2026 12:53 PM
To: triumphs at autox.team.net
Subject: [TR] A new book with an interesting Standard-Triumph flavour

 

A week or so ago, I was laid low in bed for a few days with an oddball infection and urgently needed something 'interesting' to read. Fortuitously on the same day I took to my pad of moss and leaves, a copy of a book written by my great friend and former Standard-Triumph colleague arrived in the mail. I knew it was imminent and it could not have come at a better time. I read it in one hit. Then I read it again and thoroughly enjoyed it just as much the second time around.

 

The author is one Peter D. Cole who I first 'met' when I was working at the Coventry plant and Peter had just come into central London from the company's main Service Division in the west London suburbs. I was then moved from Coventry to the London showroom in 1967 and Peter and I became close friends and colleagues, sharing a mews cottage with another colleague, Roger Maingot, who later went on to work for Ferrari and after that as Managing Director for Rolex watches. It's unusual for three guys to be happy and  fulfilled when working together, let alone living together as well - but the three of us 'had a ball' in the London of the swinging sixties. The early part of Peter's book, called "Driving Success", addresses some aspects of Standard-Triumph life (he mentions both Roger and myself) but the main guts of it is the development of his career selling Bentley and Rolls Royce cars from prestigeous showrooms in London's West End. Peter has truly amused me on many occasions during our long friendship and his sometimes outrageous observations of people comes through in very carefully worded sentences in what he has written. I so vividly recall him once describing to me a customer who came in to buy a TR5 who was very shabbily dressed, in urgent need of a shower and deodorant as "looking and smelling rather like an out of work Greek goatherd!" On another occasion, his description of a potential customer with chronic acne on his face was "rather like talking to someone with a facial complexion akin to a paper bag full of burst plums!"

 

All that to one side, this is a charming and fascinating book that certainly opened my eyes to the somewhat eye-watering inefficiencies of Rolls Royce and Bentley products before the companies came under BMW and VW control. You'll enjoy it because it's Peter's very successful  career, while giving exposure to some of the hurts and problems that life threw at him - as it does to all of us from time to time. The details of the book if you decide on a copy (and I recommend you do) are as follows:

 

Title: DRIVING SUCCESS

Author: Peter D. Cole

ISBN #: 978-1-9193807-4-2

Publisher: MEREO BOOKS

Web URLs:  <http://www.memoirsbooks.co.uk> www.memoirsbooks.co.uk AND  <http://www.mereobooks.com> www.mereobooks.com

Book type: Paperback, 145 pages

 

It retails in the UK for GBP9.99 (US$14.50 approx @ GBP1 = USD1.45) but I'm not sure if its available yet via Amazon. If you can't find it listed for the US and Canada, I suggest an email to  <mailto:info at mereobooks.com> info at mereobooks.com

 

Absolutely no financial interest on my part in any accruing sales and I'm just so pleased that my dear friend has (yet again) recounted stories of his very successful automotive life and made me laugh - as he did so often in the past, bless him. The story of Peter and Roger Maingot jointly driving and delivering a Mk3 Spitfire in fully de-toxed condition from London to Athens in Greece (which journey took about a week just to get there) for a customer who was usually smashed out of his head on booze at any time of the day, is worth the book price in itself. Buy a copy for your auto library. You won't be disappointed. Sorry for the length but DRIVING SUCCESS deserves a much wider readership than I feel the publisher has fully taken on board.

 

Enjoy

 

Jonmac

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/triumphs/attachments/20260406/4fd72c0a/attachment.htm>