In like a lion, out like a lamb (?) … welcome to March! I’ve just finished clearing the snow and I have to say it was a really good workout.
On the 21st February Terence McKillen led us through this year’s TTC Quiz which focussed on 100 Years of the Triumph Motor Car. For the first time a hybrid club meeting was held i.e. both in person (at the Legion in Clarkson) and via Zoom. Derek McAllister had everything set-up to host the meeting at the Legion, but unfortunately COVID raised its ugly head so at the last-minute Rob Ragsdale stepped in and dealt with the technical challenges. Thankfully they were successfully resolved and there were 12 club members “live” and 12 on Zoom. I must admit, I was expecting a few more members to attend and join in the fun, especially when there was an option of either attending in-person or virtually. Now that we know we can hold hybrid meetings we’ll try the format again when it makes sense to do so. Winners of the competition were Glen Donaldson, Derek McAllister and Matt Molson who each received a Tim’s gift card. As always Terence’s quiz was challenging but very appropriate for 2023, 100 years after the Triumph 10/20 was introduced to the world. Here’s a photo of the last remaining model which now resides at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon.
Well done to Terence, Rob and Derek for making this meeting possible.
Earlier in February we celebrated Sir John Black’s birthday by participating in “Drive Your Triumph Day”. I‘ve been exchanging e-mails with Rye Livingstone who organises DYTD every year and he is dealing with a number of issues which have delayed publication of the ~750 photos he’s received. As you probably know California got hit with some major storms and Rye’s neighbourhood in the Santa Cruz Mountains got a dump of 8 inches of wet snow instead of the more usual annual dusting of about ¼ inch! Hundreds of trees came down, blocking roads and taking out power lines so he’s been without power, heat and internet since Thursday. On top of all that Shutterfly (his usual photo-sharing site) is discontinuing its sharing options, so he’s trying to find another service to build a similar website and post the photos. Rye will let us know when the photos are sorted and published. Stay tuned! To whet your appetite here’s a photo of Clive Huizinga’s TR6 taken at the Peterborough locks.
Right after Drive Your Triumph Day at LBCC (Dave Compton and pals) in the east end of the city planned a pub lunch outing at The Black Dog Pub (they’ve referred to it as a “Natter & Nog”). Derek invited all TTC members to come out and make some new car enthusiast friends. A good time was had by all and a glass was raised to celebrate Sir John Black’s birthday.
Just the other day I received an e-mail from Michael Samuels, a Triumph enthusiast and member of the Desert Centre Triumph Club in Phoenix. Michael is the latest custodian of Frank Manning’s TR4 and he had some questions which he hoped Frank could answer so I had to relay the sad news that Frank died in January. We’ve since exchanged e-mails and I’ve been filling in some of the knowledge gaps and Michael has been telling me more about the life of the TR in the past couple of years. I’m delighted to report that Michael and son have entered the Copperstate 1000 rally in April so Frank’s car will continue to take part in competitions, just as Frank would have wanted. I’ve asked Michael to write a piece on the TR4 and his experiences in the rally for Ragtop so hopefully we’ll find out more soon. Here’s a pic of Frank’s old TR4 outside its new home in Phoenix.
This graphic was recently published in the monthly Canadian Rootes Report;
… which I thought was a perfect depiction of what happens when we’re fixing Triumphs (or any LBC for that matter). It reminded me of an instance last year when I was reinstalling my speedometer after it had been rebuilt. As you probably know the speedo and tachometer are held onto the dash with knurled nuts and it’s not a difficult task to zip the instruments in and out. Unless of course you fumble and drop the knurled nut, which is exactly what I did. Could I find it? Absolutely not! And after about an hour of searching (and cursing) I gave up and called Tony Fox who, of course, had a supply and let me borrow one. Tony said “Oh it will turn up” and lo-and-behold 2 weeks later it showed up in the footwell … presumably having been in an “alternate dimension” for a while.
We’re working on a few events for March and April and I’ll let you know when we have more details. In the meantime as the weather warms up you can start to prepare your Triumphs in readiness for an early spring … well, we can but hope!
Cheers; Dave
Dave Sims
President, Toronto Triumph Club
905-331-1496