Paul's Hurricane

[Gary]

Paul you were spotted at the triumph club meet on Sunday by a workmate of mine.
He said that he had seen an immaculate BX Hurricane and he had taken a picture of it because it was so clean.

[Paul296]

Yep - that was me! At the Triumph owners club HQ in Lubenham just outside Market Harborough. My friend Simon has a lovely Spitfire and they were having a bit of a get together - some nice cars there and a very interesting place.



Picnic hampers, string back gloves, tartan car blankets and WW2 fighter pilots jackets were very much in attendance (as you would expect).



A lovely Vitesse and Simon's Spitfire.



TR6



A festively decorated Spitfire (that's already done the rounds on Autoshite).



Hmmm . . . some frogs.



And last but not least my friend Simon in his Spitfire. A very solid car that needs a weekends valetting and general cosmetic tidying (by me in the summer) to get it really lovely.

On this occasion I didn't take any pics of my car (which is unusual for me )

[patersom10]

GT6, best looking British car. would love to have the money to buy store and maintain one..

[Thread Bear]

In that lovely plum purple colour, Yeah Baby!

[Defender110]

GT6, best looking British car. would love to have the money to buy store and maintain one..

TR6 much nicer or TR4 nicer still IMHO. I had an old Triumph 2000 MK2 which is possibly one of my favourite cars that I've owned, got wrote off right outside our local Police station by some idiot trying to make a quick get away from the Police car park. ;-( It's one car I would love to have again as a daily driver if I could afford the petrol.

[Tinkley]

Ah yes a Triumph 2000, the second car I ever drove after a Rover 90 (P4 type I believe). Quite a nice car, the police had the 2500 injected version. It was a pale blue K plater and actually was quite good to drive. It turned out to be pretty reliable too with only a water hose going on my mum when driving in France. My Dad got me to take it to two wheel cornering, getting to feel the limits on part of the old Brooklands track. He was a member of the Brooklands Society and in those days you could get access and it was a lot quieter. He just kept saying faster, faster....

A friend at Poly had one of those TR6 beasts and aprt from fuel injectors requiring regular replacement it was pretty good. It was a clean white one. Mind you I was also impresed with the Lancia Betas (until they turned into rust) as they were quick for their engine size.

[Paul296]

GT6, best looking British car. would love to have the money to buy store and maintain one..

Actually, Simon was talking about getting a GT6. Without an overdrive the Spitfire is quite slow and the novelty of having a convertible has worn off as it's so cold all the time (although to be fair he could fix the heater!).

[deltic]

My first car was a 1970 brown Herald 13/60 with 60000 miles on the clock and bought for £200.00. And later when a student I used to work on Saturdays for Sports Car Supplies in Swalwell which was fun, especially my first experience of a fax machine in an attempt to communicate with Italy. How technology has moved on!

[Thread Bear]

The GT6 is pretty small inside. Like driving a tuned tortoise. The sad thing is that the Spitfire was not strong enough to take the 6 cylinder engine. As an open sports car it looks great but the Spridget is much the more sporting choice - until it was Americanised and had the 1500 Triumph engine, not the chief reason its no good though. So the obvious gap in the range was not plugged, 6 cylinder budget DHC sports car, and the better selling open cars were spoilt rather than improved. Brilliant! Mind you this was the period where BL managed several times to make a worse replacement for a good car that people liked. Can I say TR7? Allegro? Clubman? Instead of a TR6 or MG1300 and Cooper S? Apparently we no longer wanted small sports cars and Reliant dropped the ball with the Steven's Cipher, making the Scimitar instead. Nah! Thatcher delivered a coup de grace but BL signed their own death warrant, I fear. Mazda anyone? Still cheap as chips and better than most of the above with Elan looks....like the Cipher, whoops.

Returning to the GT6. You may pop the 150 BHP engine in. Its a fast car. Several chums had these. I still preferred a well tuned and sorted Spridget, but come a straight and there was no way to keep up. A different driving experience.

The little Triumph saloons were all quite nice cars. I never really understood why they did both FWD and RWD. We had a 1500 called Herbert which went round the family and covered a huge mileage without ever really being greatly loved by any one person. Eventually, in his decrepitude, it became the challenge to get another year out of him, till as much fluids went in as fell out or got burned, to do a few miles and they no longer appeared in scrap yards for cheap parts. He eventually become spares with an enthusiast.

[Defender110]

Poor Herbert

[electrokid]

In that lovely plum purple colour, Yeah Baby!

Possibly a colour called Rose Taupe - I chose that for my first Maxi.

[Defender110]

In that lovely plum purple colour, Yeah Baby!

Possibly a colour called Rose Taupe - I chose that for my first Maxi.

Lovely colour Rose Taupe and more for the routes vehicles than Triumph/BL and more a rosey grey than lovely plum don't you thing Brian?

[Thread Bear]

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7056/6777 ... d1b1_o.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Taupe is something to do with French moles isn't it? Anyway, nice though that colour is I was thinking more like the attached Charles Hawtrey version.

[electrokid]

On the BL colour chart the Rose Taupe was almost black but when the car arrived it was disapointingly lighter - it was about midway between that Charles Hawtrey and black. That rose grey is a very pleasant colour though - the phrase "shade variations" comes to mind !

[MULLEY]

Those types of colours don't do much for me, looks like a brown spew colour imho.