Early TR6 comes home

Steve Denton first got into Triumphs as the result of a misunderstanding. It was a most fortuitous mistake though and he now has the Triumph fleet of his dreams, including his ideal car in this early TR6.

This is a very early TR6, with a commission number of CP25243. The first pre-production car had been built in July 1968 with a number of CP25001, and the first customer specification car was CP25003 which was built in September. Triumph were only up to CP25159 at the start of 1969, and my car was built that January. The model was launched to the public and press at the Brussels Motor Show on 14th January 1969, but I could never figure out why my car had not been sold until the April. I found out recently that they kept all the TR6s in the UK back until the April launch here, which explains why there was this delay between build date and registration.

I’m Northampton born and bred, so it was a real kick when somebody pointed out the local BD registration number. It could have been even better because my dad did an apprenticeship at Wadham Stringers in Northampton, and they were a Triumph, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce dealership. I was hoping that this car had been a Wadham Stringer car, but unfortunately it came from the local opposition instead – it had been sold new by Douglas Motors (Northampton). Not that dad would have seen this one go through anyway, as he didn’t start until 1974.

I’ve been able to trace some of its history, including all the previous owners – back in the pre-GDPR days you could get all of that that information from the DVLA. I’ve not contacted any of the former owners, though. For some reason the car was sold directly down to Essex; I have no idea why, but perhaps the model was in short supply initially as Triumph were geared up to export them to North America, and so that any the UK network could get their hands on were traded around the dealers. I am only speculating here though, and would love to hear from anyone who was involved in the dealerships at the time and can shed light on what was happening.