Bank Hol - Day One

Had my Dad down from Yorkshire for 4 days over the Bank Holiday, so we had to keep him entertained with a bit of a transport festival, we visited both air, land, and sea transport related places over the weekend, even subjecting him to open top motoring in the seven to get there.

The first place we visited was the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville near Lowestoft, bringing back very distant memories for me of trolley buses in the Bradford/Leeds area and for him memories of trams which where gone before I was born.

Trams and Trolley bus.
Maidstone Trolley Bus

Blackpool Tram

Narrow Gauge Lister Diesel Engine

Early Electric Car, Enfield Automotive Company, built 1975, max speed 35mph, one of a hundred produced on the Isle of White.

The museum is quite interesting, very cheap entry, and with unlimited rides on the trams, buses, and railway would suit family groups.

Following this we took a trip into Lowestoft, we had the usual sea side mussels and prawns on the seafront, then watched some shipping supplying the many tankers moored off the Suffolk Coast, apparently these are avoiding port fees and taxes by transhipping oil into smaller coastal tankers, surely an environmental disaster in the making if a hose was to break or collision occur, I counted around 18 tankers. We then visited Oulton Broad on the way back.

Supply Vessel at Lowestoft, 3 tankers at anchor in background.

Oulton Broad Lock

August report

Not much to report Club Triumph wise in August, as a club we have not attended any major shows since Helmingham, some members have attended shows indivdually in and around Norfolk and had very good weather. Personally we had some catching up to do at home after a busy season.
The Norfolk area had a tour of the "Grain Brewery" for our August meeting, with some 14 cars attending, including a few TR reg visitors, the tour was interesting, we where talked through the brewing process around this small brewery, and tasted some nice beers. Gill and I had some beer specially labelled and we came home with a case of "Best Wedge" which is very nice.
We have had no major problems with the cars, both clocking up miles as daily drivers, I did an oil, filter, and plug change on Gills FHC and a general check, only finding that one rear fog had stopped working, and the reverse lights where not working. The left hand fog was full of water and contacts corroded, and the silver coating on the reflector was non-existant, I had a spare so this was changed, the reverse light problem was traced to a faulty switch on the gearbox, the plastic housing had degraded, and the connection will not hold. Luckily the spare gearbox in the lock up donated a switch.
The insurance on the FHC ran out in August, I added this to the DHC insurance for a mere £32 with agreed value, low windscreen excess, and unlimited mileage with Peter James, bargain!

Helmingham Festival of Classics and Sports Cars

I always look forward to this event every year, the venue is Helmingham Hall, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, the event is a large collection of Classic's, including many Stag's and TR6's , but surprisingly very few Heralds and spits, A large collection of Vintage cars, many Austins, Rileys, Rolls and Bentley, and displays of Modern Sports Cars by Piston Head Members, including DB7,s DB9,s, Maseratis, Ferraris, Nobles, Porsche, etc. The day includes a couple of fast drives up and down the 1/4 mile drive to Helmingham Hall by those willing to pay a large fee in aid of charity.

Norfolk area took along 6 cars on a nice sunny day, meeting in Eye for a 15 mile trip to Helmingham in the sun, Jim in front of me in his shiny GT6 avidly avoiding puddles from the overnight rain, myself delighting in finding them, much to the disgust of Ted and Christina in the shiny TR6 behind, sorry! Parking together, gazebo up, chairs out, Gill and I wondered round the many cars on display, before watching the runs up the drive.

Early E Type.

Left, a TR7 V8, Genuine TR8 on right.

Spotted a NG TF kit car, exactly the same as the one I built 10 years ago.

I took a liking to this Talbot Sunbeam Lotus, valued at around 20k.

Mustang powering up the drive.

Early Porsche

Very quick Lancia Delta Integrale

Nice PI, excellent paint job.

Interior shot of Lotus Evora, when I last saw this when working at Lotus, it was cramped, the +2 seats where difficult to get into, they have done a good job in widening and stretching what started as an Elise chassis.

Lotus Evora, for me resembles a Elise below waist line, and above a quick car featured on top gear beginning with K which I cant spell!

Lanchester.

The more prestigous cars where displayed in front of Helmingham Hall, they even had their own Tea and cucumber sandwich tent.

Ultima doing a quick run.

KTM track day car.

Club Triumph Cars.

Gill took a liking to this TVR
Shes not having one!

LCVC Ditchingham Rally

Club Triumph Norfolk attended the Lowestoft Classic Vehicle Clubs Rally at Ditchingham today, not the best of turnouts with only 8 Club Triumphs attending, although weather and forecast was not good, it was very windy, a few showers, and the gazebo we put up had to come down due to the wind.

Club Stand.

Bond Micro Car

Villiers engine, chain drive to front wheel and pivot on Bond Microcar.

Jasons 2000 Saloon

Jims personal weather proofing! most ran to their cars when it rained!

Some of the other varied cars.

A few other Triumphs.

Grand Union Canal

Last week we spent time on our narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal. As both cars are now daily drivers and having the daughter and her boyfriend along we had to take the 2 TR7s to the Marina, so we just had to pose with the cars and the boat outside the Marina.

We cruised up the Grand Union Canal from Gayton, Northants, up to Marsworth in Hertfordshire, passing through the 2 mile long Blisworth Tunnel, it takes around half an hour to get through the tunnel through to Stoke Bruerne, when first entering you cannot see the far end due to the length and the haze from the boat exhasuts. We then cruised through Northants, passed through Milton Keynes and Leighton Buzzard, before climbing the series of locks into the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, an area we visited on the HCR this year.

Typical Northants Scenery .

Mooring at Cosgrove.

Locking up the Chilterns in the rain.

View from the canal of the Chalk Lion at Whipsnade.

Working boats carrying coal and diesel, we filled with diesel from these at a mere 65p per litre.

Approaching Marsworth.

Another pair of old working boats.

Approaching a large dutch barge.

End of the long tunnel.

The tunnel entrance, so long you cannot see the light at the far end.

Approaching a heacy thunderstorm at the end of the voyage.

Back on the Marina Berth.

Was an enjoyable week, shared most of the locks with other nice boats and crews, which takes the hard work out of locking, we went through 50 locks, and twice through the 2 mile tunnel. Total milage was around 80 miles. Most of the rain was thankfully at night, and we had some good sunny spells, and had a couple of canalside barbeques. When we hit the thunderstorm on the last day we moored in a hurry, and James, the daughters boyfriend got wetter than he intended, he slipped and went in head first into the canal.

Only down point was some b-----t nicked my stainless steel, Triumph badged tyre caps, this in a CCTV secure car park at the Marina.

TR Drivers National Weekend

This weekend we went to the TR Drivers Club National Weekend at Billing, Northampton, we would have liked to also attend the Club Triumph National weekend but as they are on the same weekend and we have two wedges it had to be the TRDC one.

We drove up on Friday afternoon, taking both the drop head coupe and the fixed head coupe, we got caught up in the typical Friday Cambridge A14/A11 jam, so took a detour, before rejoining the A14 for Northampton.

We where camping for 2 nights, not my favourite pastime! but with brilliant weather I enjoyed roughing it for once.

Gill cooking the Chilli on Friday Night.

Saturday we took part in a 45 mile road run round the Northants lanes, stopping at the Tollemache Arms, the pub where Club Triumph Northants meet. Around 20 odd cars took part in the run in hot sun, we had a wait for a lost 7 on route, but had a good quick run, which ended in a run down the A45, arranged so the V8's could blast by. Nice to see a large convoy of wedges.

Waiting for the lost wedge.

Line up wedges in of the Tollemache Arms.

Convoy of Wedges.

Saturday night we where entertained with a quiz, followed by a disco put on by Kevin Todd, aka Dizzy Fox, the Essex area rep. Also running where various TR7 rally videos on a large screen, best being the Coors Historic Rallysprint, along with some video of Tony Pond/Per Eklund and Roger Clarke in the 1980 RAC rally and the American rallier John Buffum. Coupled with some John Smiths and Old Speckled Hen this made for a good night.

Sunday even more wedges arrived, by my reckoning around 70 cars where seen, along with some TR6's invited along for their anniversary celebration. We also had a few Stag visitors. Theme of the event was special TR7's such as press cars, development cars, conversions, etc. Some very good cars where on show, favourite for me was the original TR7 V8 rally car of Per Eklund, beautifully restored to running condition by Belgium TR7 V8 rally fan Bert Smeets, and now back in the UK and a nice genuine TR7 Sprint.

I spent some time on gate duty, the highlight of which was a Herald 13/60 which turned up, believing the event to be a TSSC weekend! he should have been 25 miles away at Wickstead Park near Kettering! Funnily enough he didn't want to come in!

Victory Edition TR7 and Genuine TR7 Sprint.

2 nice examples of Grinnal V8 Conversions.

Per Eklunds Rally TR7 V8 TUD 682T.

A selection of Genuine UK TR8.'s

One to p--s of the Purists, TR6 with Chevy 350 V8 and sequential gearbox. I was in awe of the engineering required to fit the Chevy block.

Interior of Chevy TR6.

Ex launch day press cars.

A good event, thanks to all concerned.