The right choice

In 1978 a Triumph Stag would have been a brave choice as your only car, but after 41 years and getting on for 200,000 miles together, it was clearly the perfect fit for Malcolm and Vera Whitehouse.

- Simon Goldsworthy

Malcolm and Vera Whitehouse bought their Inca Yellow Stag in 1978, when it was just two years old. Malcolm has always been a Triumph man, both on two wheels and four, and as soon as the Stag came out, he knew he wanted one. However, wanting a Stag and being able to afford one were not necessarily the same thing. Vera and Malcolm only got married in 1973 and were still building up a home while the Stag was in production. So Malcolm had to make do with other Triumphs, although these included a couple of 2000s, so he wasn’t exactly hard done by in the motoring stakes!

However, by 1978 their most recent 2000 was starting to get a bit old and thoughts turned to a replacement. Doing a few sums suggested they could maybe afford to buy a new Ford or Vauxhall, or that they could look on the secondhand market and get something a little more dashing. In the end, it was Malcolm’s long-term desire for one and the couple’s long-time patronage of the Triumph marque that swung things the Stag’s way.

‘I don’t drive, I never have done and I’d never had any interest in cars at all,’ said Vera. ‘I was more interested in sport, playing competitive tennis and badminton and also skiing. I was also keen on walking and climbing and enjoyed travelling abroad, but an interest in cars – no, I didn’t even know what a V8 engine was! But somebody often used to park a Magenta Stag in a road near where I worked and whenever we’d pass that, Malcolm would point it out as the car he wanted to own. I must admit that at the time I never thought I would develop an interest in any particular car, let alone affection for one, but I did think it looked beautiful.