[DHG-1934]

Was out for a cruise with my girlfriend on this beautiful, sunny, mid-50's afternoon we had today. There's a stretch near here where everyone seems to go cruise. It varies between 55mph semi-highway and 35 mph small town roads. Great straight shot driving with some good scenery, and you can more or less stay on the same road forever if you want.

There are a few intersections, and as I pulled away from one in one of the faster sections, I saw a beautiful TR-6 coming up behind me. Traffic was bunched up for a while, and I thought he was a jerk at first, because he was bucking his car behind me like he wanted some, but there was obviously no place to go.

Next light, we pull up together. I look over and am just in awe of how perfect this Triumph was. His girlfriend/wife is in the passenger seat, and she sees me looking, so I give her the thumb, and a smile. :smile: She leans over to him as if to say, "Hey, the mustang guy likes your car." He looks over and waves and we both grin like high-school kids at each other as he starts throwing some revs.

Rev-rev-rev.... waiting on the light. Usually I don't rev in situations like this, but it was definitely going to be a "fun" kind of race, not one of those attitude laden p*ss-you-off types.

So here we sit, revving to high hell like 16 year olds (damn that TR sounded good), blue haired women in the cars behind both of us, light turns green. As I peeled quite a bit more than I intended taking off, I heard what to my ears sounded distinctly like the death boom of a rear differential. The TR doesn't move! Having blown a rear in a similar situation myself, and as nice as the couple seemed, I felt really bad, and turned around at the next opportunity. They were gone, but had most definitely NOT followed us up the road. I'm certain that guy had to break something, it was just an awful noise that came from his car when he dropped the clutch.

I feel kind of bad about it; I'd have at least liked to offer him a hand or whatnot so he didn't think I was off down the road laughing at him or whatnot... :sad: Maybe I'll see him again sometime...

Joe

 

[Nasty Bob]

Really cool story Joe!

This brings back memories of the summer of '73 with my TR-6.

My best friend and I were cruising through Canada and met these HOT college chicks from Edmonton about 50 miles west of Banff National Park and were supposed to meet them for dinner and drinks that evening in Banff.

Well, as luck would have it, he and I were bopping along to some Led Zeppelin when all of a sudden the rear end exploded without warning. All my drag racing past had returned to haunt me. The ring and pinion broke! :sad:

Needless to say, no hot girls that night and we had to make the long trek back to San Diego by Greyhound to get my mom's Buick and a car trailer to bring the TR home as no one had parts in Canada.

It was a great adventure though. :smile:

 

[DHG-1934]

How amazing that you still have the picture! Situations like that are always terrible, but make great stories later on.

My exploding diff was caused by my ignorant and overzealous 16 (17?) y.o. driving habits. I had a '78 chevette that I just beat mercilessly. I had alot of fun in it, but looking back I'm honestly ashamed of how ridiculously and consistently hard I beat on it. I thought nothing about sidestepping the clutch on that thing from every redlight, becuause it was the only way to get a really good peel out of that car, and that's all I really wanted. (Believe it or not, that thing would move pretty damn quick with a fresh clutch and some high revs.)

I had a friend with an S-10, and we always talked about racing each other. One night, by accident, we wound up next to each other at a light. Rev, rev, rev, BLAM. Just like the TR-6. Car didn't even move. It sucked, but was incredibly funny given the circumstances.

I'll say this: I don't think I would have handed the TR his ass too badly. Though I wasn't going all out, he had previously seemed to hang with me reasonably well, and I couldn't believe the throaty and gorgeous exhaust note that came out when he was revving at the light. I was really looking forward to racing the guy.

And I can't help but think that he's somewhere right now thinking what an ******* I was. It was fully 3 or 4 minutes before I could get back around, and if the roles were reversed I would probably have gone home thinking the jerk in the mustang went down the road laughing at me. :sad:

Joe

 

[Nasty Bob]

What's so sad is I've probably scattered more differential parts over the highway than 99% of everyone I know. :roll:

In my young and carefree days, I didn't think about cost, I only though how cool it sounded to get 2nd and 3rd to bark the tires.

Probably the messiest one was the '66 Jaguar XKE 4.2 I had before the TR-6.

I was messing with this '64 or '65 Stingray and I had him really good through 1st gear. As soon as I banged 2nd, the most God awful noise you ever heard erupted and I had rearend parts on the ground for a hundred feet. Needless to say, the Vette dude was laughing his butt off and I was looking stupid as hell. :sad:

That TR you ran across would've held you through 1st and halfway though 2nd, but that's pretty much it. It only has a 2498cc inline six with dual Strombergs. But if it was a road course, it would be a whole new ballgame. I can't remember the figures, but in it's day, a TR-6 had a better cornering ability than a Ferrari, due to the low center of gravity, IRS and 15 inch radial tires.

This one in the pic was a '70 and I absolutely wore it out by '73, so I just sold it to a dealer to dump it. I did buy a '76 model in '78 and though it was one of the last built and rare, was nowhere close to the performance of the older one. Smog pump and all that other crap really choked it down. :evil:

I really loved those TRs, but they are extremely expensive to maintain. The brake master cylinder is over $500 now for example.

Here's another pic of the '70. It's showing me and my (future)wife just after high school graduation in '72. Dig the stylish hat! :lol:

 

[BULLITTBRO1]

you sure do have a lot of old pics.

 

[01GTCOUPE]

1975, bombing around in my buddie's TR6, drinking beer - of course, bound to get stopped by the man. I know we're toast, then - or are we?

My pal says, "Lift up the carpet." I do, and look down through a hole to the ground beneath the Triumph. "Too cool," I said, and stood my bottle of Molson on the ground under the floorboards, as John Law strides up to the car - top down.

Jonny looks around, lets us go, and as he turns away, I lift the carpet, pull up my beer and we gently cruise away.

Automotive design refined, I'd say.

 

[DHG-1934]

01GT: That's a good story, too! I briefly owned a '66 beetle that rear seat passengers could have accomplished the same feat with. Fortunately it was never needed!


1Nasty, I see that your penchant for pictures of you, bikini clad women, and cars together goes back a long way...

I'll refrain from any conclusion drawing about the fact that you blew the rear out on the car on the way to meet hot college chicks at some date AFTER this picture of you and your future wife was taken... :wink:

DW

_________________
Dark Highland Green #1934

Bone Stock except for a deep Zaino Shine!

1995 4.6L Thunderbird LX in Electric Red -- R.I.P.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DHG-1934 on 2002-01-28 00:58 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DHG-1934 on 2002-01-28 01:00 ]</font>

 

[krankiekat]

Man o Man do I miss my RED 75 TR6 ! Paid $5900 for it with tax brand spankin' new...it was my first manual car and I picked it up from the dealer not knowing how to drive a manual, was that ever a hurky jerky ride back home...but I loved that car and to this day I love TR6's, although they would hardly be any match for my Bullitt, but never the less one of the classiest and prettiest cars on the road although they were a mechanical twin carb nightmare and were not too reliable in other areas as well. I wish someone would put out a modern retro clone of the TR6 to compete with the Miata, the Boxster the MR2, and the Z3 coupes....




_________________
Happiness is a Warm Bullitt...!
Frank & his
Black Beauty Bullitt # 2627
from Montvale, New Jersey

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: krankiekat on 2002-01-28 01:53 ]</font>

 

[Nasty Bob]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2002-01-28 00:57, DHG-1934 wrote:
1Nasty, I see that your penchant for pictures of you, bikini clad women, and cars together goes back a long way...

I'll refrain from any conclusion drawing about the fact that you blew the rear out on the car on the way to meet hot college chicks at some date AFTER this picture of you and your future wife was taken... :wink:

DW </BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR></TD></TR></TABLE>

Actually, she and I went separate ways for 3 years shortly after this pic was taken and hooked back up in '76. :wink:

 

[DHG-1934]

Sorry if that was a comment I shouldn't have made, it just seemed too cute to pass up... :smile:

Joe

 

[Nasty Bob]

Actually, it needed to be asked. :smile:

 

[redracer]

DHG-1934,
I sure hope that you would have handed him a loss. We have a couple of TR-6s at the house and believe me, they are no straight line monsters. Every summer, a company called the Roaster factory(make British sports car parts) has a summer party and has drag races. My brother had one of the fastest cars this year and it still only ran in the 17s or barely cracked the 16s. I handles like a champ and I autocross that TR-6 in SCCA events throughout the year and have pretty much cleaned up in every event that I have entered.
Actually if any of you are interested, I went and looked at a 6 last week near my house here and Maryland that has been sitting in a Garage since 78 with NO rust on it. We had worked him down to $4,000 but then realized we didn’t have any more room. Somebody is going to get a really nice car out of that deal.

-Rob