TR madness

Sir,

Having been accused of madness for spending so much time and money on my 1954 TR2, I was overjoyed to find in the December issue of your unique magazine that there are others who share my madness. I call it enthusiasm, but in 1969 it seems that an enthusiast for sports cars is mad unless he has winding windows and other “extras” high on his priority list as performance.

The big advantage of the older TR, as your other contributors have pointed out, is good performance for a low outlay. However, the low outlay means that any tearaway can afford one, and it is this one factor alone which has caused the TR to have been given such a bad name. As each year passes one sees more and more obviously having had the guts driven out of them with no maintenance given, with consequent toll in dilapidation and un-road-worthiness.

Where else could I find 30 m.p.g., infinite cruising at our national “safe” maximum speed, and such reliability from £140 worth of 15-year-old car? As regards rear-end adhesion, I find that judicious adjustment of tyre pressures, a full fuel tank, and Michelin ZX tyres reduce the necessity for tranquilising passengers to a very acceptable level. As for being comfortable, whilst slogging in second gear up a hill in hired 1969 A to B-type transport with all mod. cons, my wife declared that to take the hill in top gear at twice the speed in the TR was comfort.

By the way, S.A.H. of Leighton Buzzard generally provide spares for the car in a fraction of the time that Standard and triumph dealers take!

HMS Hardy.
P. A. Marks.

Standard-Triumph Sales Ltd.’s PRO, Mr. S. J. Pearson, has written expressing great interest in this TR correspondence. He reminds us that the Secretary of the recently-formed TR Register is: T. Simpson, 100, High Street, Redbourn, St. Albans, Herts.