We’ve heard some fantastic stories all about the incredible bonds that owners share with their cherished classics this year. Chris Hope picks his favourites
1973 TRIUMPH TR6
David explains: ‘I needed a car for my new job when I returned from travelling abroad in 1974 and I’d always fancied a TR6 because to me it was the last of the affordable macho sports cars. My father spotted this one for sale locally. We went to have a look and found that it had been specifically ordered with a hard-top instead of the usual hood. The first owner took delivery of the car on 1 January 1974, and the story goes that he apparently took it home to his wife who took one look at it before immediately telling him: “You’d better take that back because I’m pregnant!”
‘He kept it for three months then returned it to Lex Mead having, presumably, had all of the fun that he was allowed to have. I had to wait a while to take ownership though because, rather bizarrely, the steering wheel had been stolen! Lex Mead eventually gave up trying to get a replacement Triumph item and supplied it with the aftermarket Moto-Lita wheel that it still has today.
‘I used it regularly for ten years and had it maintained by legendary local Triumph wizards Bill and Mack at Philog Garage in Whitchurch, Cardiff, who refused to work on foreign cars. I commuted to work in the law courts next to Cardiff police station in it and would sometimes park it on double yellow lines when the parking was full then get told in no uncertain terms to move it when the traffic wardens came along.
‘My wife Sue and I went on our honeymoon in it in 1978 after it had been decked out with decorations and my pals lifted the back end off the ground, so the car wouldn’t move when we tried to accelerate away.
‘Sue has never let me forget the fact that we sold her MGB and when our son Nick came along in 1980. Sadly, I needed a larger practical car in the Eighties so my father, Ernest, took the TR6 over and drove it to his golf club regularly until the late Eighties, at which point it went into storage in mum’s garage in Swansea.
‘I came under some pressure to get rid of it and scrap it after dad passed away because it needed work but to me it was a special car full of wonderful memories and had always been reliable – even the injection system, which doesn’t have the best reputation. I rented a garage from an elderly lady in Cardiff and towed it up in 2008 to store it but then commissioned TR specialist, Ian Slark Restorations in Bristol, to restore it. Triumph specialist Spiro Tanti at Classic Cars Cardiff has maintained it since it was finished in 2012.’
David’s son Nick now takes up the story: ‘Apparently my first ever car journey was in this car when I came home from the hospital after I was born. I was in a Moses basket behind the seats, as was common then. It was a part of my
