THE BIG RESTORATION
Dave Lowden never got to finish his first TR restoration – so, second time around, there was no way he was going to be defeated
SCAN
Dave Lowden’s love for Triumph TRs goes back to his teens. As a 15-year-old schoolboy in Luton, his favourite teacher drove a battered red TR4. ‘Although it wasn’t in the best condition, all the boys wanted one and to be like him,’ recalls Dave. It was only another three years before Dave had a TR of his own. He’d been spending most evenings in his late teens repairing and working on old cars with a friend who worked as a paint sprayer for Rolls-Royce, and to improve his skills he started an evening class in welding and classic car body repairs.
‘It was at this time, and with new-found confidence, that I saw a rotten TR6 for sale and couldn’t resist it,’ he said.
He spent the next three years working on the ’6 between jobs that he and his mate did for friends, fixing up such delights as a Jensen 541 and several MGBs. As the car neared completion, personal circumstances meant that Dave had to sell it – a necessary decision, but one that he spent the next 25 years regretting. Work and then family became a priority during that quarter of a century, though he did have the odd dabble with classic cars, buying a Lotus Esprit Turbo and a Triumph Spitfire.
But there was unfinished business to deal with. Dave had an itch that he still needed to scratch.
The time comes
Fast-forward to 2011, and the time was finally right to get his dream TR – a TR4A just like his teacher had owned 30 years earlier. He found the perfect car – an MoT’d and running TR4A in dark blue, which needed a bit of work but was all there. ‘I bought it with the intention of just keeping it as a running-repair car.
THE RESTORER
Dave Lowden, a Triumph man through and through, owned a rusty TR6 as his first car. The tennis coach from Lutterworth bought his first one at the age of 18 along with a Spitfire. Next on his wishlist? Another TR6!
But after two years of using it, I decided that what I really needed was to build what I wanted back as an 18-year-old. So, over the Christmas period of 2012 to 2013, I stripped the car.’
The chassis was sent off to specialist CTM Engineering in Birmingham, who blasted, repaired, rejigged and strengthened it before returning it to be used as a jig for the bodyshell. Meanwhile, the shell and panels were sent off for dipping.
As is so often the case with restoration projects, once all the paint and filler was removed, the bodyshell was in worse
