It's A Triumph Takeover

For a brief spell, Simon finds himself with four Triumphs and the Standard 8, not to mentin one Fiat, two MGs and his wife’s Nissan Micra. Space was at a premium!

- Simon

Last issue we brought you the story of my adventure in the Herald on Club Triumph’s 10 Countries Run. It was a bit of a squeeze to fit everything into that issue, so there were some loose ends that had to be held over. Hopefully I can now tie them all up, although please bear with me if the chronology gets a little confused.

Let’s start with the cars pictured above. These were three of the five cars used by the Team Torpedo guys on the 10CR. The two team cars not pictured were a Dolomite fitted with Sprint running gear (stranded in Switzerland with a failed head gasket, but heroically TT are getting it repaired and saved rather than cashing in the insurance), and a Toledo that is being taken back to the States by one of the consortium members as a souvenir.

The Acclaim will be familiar to you, as I have had that for a couple of years now. It performed almost faultlessly on the 10CR (I say ‘almost’ because apparently a nut came loose on the throttle linkage and had to be tightened), but back at base I noticed a lot of verdigris on the radiator. Removing this showed that a lot of the fins were missing too, so it was clearly on its last legs. I had it re-cored locally for £172, and all is rosy again.

The blue 1850 Dolomite was only a temporary visitor, as TT were looking to sell this. Fortunately Nathan Billing (who, along with fellow Dolomite fan Bruce Jones, has been extremely helpful in the past) came up trumps again and collected it soon after; he had a prospective buyer lined up, and knew I needed it moved so stepped up to the plate for me and I am very grateful for his prompt action.