Triumph Spot No.1: The Lesser Brown-seated 'S'

Oh, blimey, it worked! Well, seeing as I'm on a roll, I might as well publish this snap, too.
Ella and I took a decent walk around Brisbane on Saturday.

Coming back through the City we chanced upon a sighting of white 2500 S. It was parked up at the side of the road, looking to be in reasonable condition. Needless to say I was more excited than Ella. Although my camera had claimed the batteries were flat, it mustered up the power to take a shot of the 'S'!



The only noticeable differences to the European species were the go-faster stripes and the unusual brown interior, that looked original.

See the mighty Brumby!

After messing around trying about 10 different ways of uploading pictures on this blog, there's nothing to say that this method is going to work ... but here goes anyway!

This is the Brumby. I like to pretend that it's actually a TR5 with Surrey Top, and I make 'six cylinder noises' when I drive around Brisbane in it ... I know, I really need help!

Changes

Changes afoot it turns out.

I got a phonecall a couple of days ago that has meant the Triumph search is going to be put on hold. Ella's father is looking for a new car and he has been dissapointed with the part exchange offers that have been made for his old one. He really likes the car and doesn't want to get rid of it for peanuts. He asked me if we wanted it for free, and I couldn't really say no. When he gets round to ordering his new car we'll get his old one. It's a very well kept 1998 Saab 9000 2.3t, which, although it's no Triumph, is certainly adequate!

However, it doesn't mean the end to all things Triumph. I've decided that rather than chase after a saloon when we'll have the Saab, the money might be 'better' spent shipping my GT6 over. I've yet to see one here for sale, but I've been told that they are fairly rare, so it would be extra fun. I'm not going to rush to bring it over. I'll leave it a few months until I've decided if I want to stay in Australia long-term.

Meanwhile we'll have to stick to the Brumby (which I found out yesterday means 'Wild Horse' ... I'll put some pictures up of it soon, as I bought a digital camera a couple of days ago.
I'll keep this blog going, though, as a record of the stuff I get up to out here, but it will become more a log of weekend trips and Triumph-spotting than a record of my involvement with Triumphs.

Ok. Does anybody know anything about shipping cars to Australia?
Answers on an e-mail please to reeksyofoz@gmail.com

See the sky about to rain (surely not!)

It is with a tinge of sadness that I can report that progress on Triumph Hunt has been fairly slow of late.

Last Thursday (10th March) I spotted a 2000 advertised locally. It was going fairly cheap, and far too quickly I was imagining changing tack from looking for a pricey and 'sorted' saloon (like we have seen already) to a rust-free but tatty little number with potential that could be driven and developed. We set out in the afternoon to go and have a look, but horror of horrors the unthinkable happened! It rained ... and it wasn't any of your English drizzle, this was your bona fide, rain-stops-play, full on, fair dinkum, actually-I-don't-really-fancy-crawling-around-under-a-car-in-this, sort of rain. I didn't know this sort of thing could happen in Australia, I might ask for my money back! So we bailed out half way there, and Graham sulked all the way home.

When I eventually got around to looking at the car the next day, it didn't turn out to be as interesting as I'd hoped. Looking rather forlorn in a front yard full of dodgy looking motors unfit to accompany to be stabled alongside the work of Michelotti, I was informed by the wife of the owner (whose face was covered in food for some reason) that it had been given to them by a friend and her husband had intended to restore it as a project, but didn't have the time, and they'd been told they were rare cars and it was worth at least $2,000 *yawn*. They were asking $1,000, but guess what? Yes, you're right, it was a bloody auto! Very calmly, and without frothing at the mouth, I explained that I didn't want an auto (it wasn't even worth buying and converting) and turned around and left. I naively assumed that an advert would mention such a detail, but I guess it's my own fault for not checking.

Determined not to give up, I also paid a visit to British Auto Care in Brisbane last week. I've been ringing them occasionally to see if they know of any cars around that are on the market, and thought I might as well drop in on them and see their workshop. It wasn't a wasted trip, and I had a decent chat with one of the guys there who had just sold his Toyota super-charged 2500 saloon to another mechanic at Greg Tunstall's (another Triumph mechanic). Have a look at it in the register on www.triumphowners.com. The guy reckoned it hadn't really been worth building in the end. I also gave Greg a call again to see if he knew of anything, and ended up chatting about the lemons that people try to sell him, which was pretty funny. There's a nice sounding Mk1 Pi up for sale in the area it turns out, but at a little more than I'm willing to part with.

However, I did have another sniff at the Mk1 Pi that's for sale in Adelaide ... thought I'd see if the guy was willing to meet up half way if the car was 'all that' and then drive it back. He didn't seem over-enthusiastic about it though, and I think I'd prefer to hang on and wait for something local.

The driving at the weekend was fairly good fun, though, even without a car befitting my suave British character *cough*. Ella and I jumped in the Ute and headed south out of Brisbane to Springwood National Park. We really ought to get a Collie to stick in the back of this car to complete the image. About an hour south, we came off the highway at Mudgereeba and headed up some excellent twisting mountain roads, crossing little wooden bridges and revving the nuts off the little Brumby. Eventually Ella asked me to slow down so she could point out her favourite spots ... not accepting my explanation that "we need to keep the momentum up to get up the hill!" The coin-operated BBQ (!) worked a treat and we had a decent walk in the rainforest the next day.

So far this week, I've not so much as smelt any 20/50 or EP90, although in response to my advert on the afore-mentioned website "no slushboxes considered!" a gentleman has contacted me about his Mk2 2.5 Pi ... Watch this space for news, I don't have any details on it yet.

'S' lightly too Mellow Yellow

Hello from the sunshine state!
It's proving a little tricky to get around to writing these entries since I'm undergoing conversion to Mac use, and I'm accessing University of Queensland servers which sometimes 'blog' me in as a completely different person ... which is a little scary. As for getting photos on to this thing, it seems to be a little trickier than it might be on a PC as the Mac doesn't seem to want to run the photo programme thing - why can't I just put a jpeg on? Raaa! All this technology! Why don't computers just have a set of points and some carburettors (or carbies as they call them down here).

Anyway, I shall persevere. On with the Triumph stuff:

After the disappointment with the slushbox Pi in East Brisbane I started making further investigations. It seems there are some great Triumph people out here, just as there are back in the UK. British Auto Care, Greg Tunstall, and the Queensland Triumph Owners Club were all contacted to see if they knew of any cars around that weren't advertised where I'd been searching. And guess what? There were!

Unfortunately, the 2.7, TR5 cam, Datsun driveshaft monster mk2 for sale at $4k (approx. 1,700 GBP) had gone already. I wonder why? However, I smiled as the next car I came across did sound tempting. A yellow 1978 (the year I was born - nice) 2500 S, all standard, but with remote central locking, new A/C and kangaroo blinding halogen headlights. Fortunately this car was located just an hour north of Brisbane at Narangba, close to the Bruce Highway (that name still makes me laugh - "G'day Bruce, meet my brother, Bruce").

Ella agreed we ought to have a look at it on our way back down from her folks' place outside Bundaberg where we were heading for the weekend. So last Friday afternoon I had my first opportunity to do a decent length drive - it takes about four and a half hours to get there from Brisbane. Ella's family are keen motorists so they don't use the main roads much. And now I know why! I had great fun, even in the Subaru Brumby that Ella has (yes, it's a Ute!)

Once off the highway we shot along virtually empty and narrow, undulating, twisty country roads where it was easy to keep the speed up. As much fun as I was having it got better, though. "Ok, slow down a bit we're coming to the gravel". Oh, gravel! What fun! More curvy bits, but this time on gravel! Then occasional bits of tarmac, before 20k sections of dusty red gravel. There would have been little clearance for the GT6 in some places I'm sure, but the Brumby is fine and it would be criminal not to give a saloon a thrashing on those tracks. Even after all the fun of the dusty driving was over the tarmacadamed roads further north were enjoyable enough, nice long fast sweeping corners.

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to take Ella's Mum's Subaru Forester XT 2.5 out for a blast as well. Wow, it's quick - it's basically the Impreza with a different shell, and 0-60 in about 6 seconds, even with the dreaded auto. Ella's Dad also said I could have the use of his shed for car maintenance whenever I wanted ... and for shed read hangar.

After a suitably relaxing weekend we came back down to Brisbane on the Monday, and stopped in at Narangba to check out the 2500 S. It turned out that the guy who owned it was an Auto-Anglophile, had married an English woman and actually worked for British Aerospace in England and owned a brand new English 'S' whilst living there. Now he has the saloon and a Stag for sale, to help fund his Piper Cherokee habit. He was very up front and explained that the first to go would be sold, but he wasn't taking offers.

The saloon was in very good condition, no discernible end float on the 100,000 mile original engine, but a set of nasty SUs that I didn't recognise - something about emission regulations. The seats were as new I think, still offering excellent support, and bodywork was almost mint, albeit a little bit Inca for me! Overdrive operated nicely, the gearbox and linkage was as good as I've ever tried, but the engine was lacking some 'oomph' (what cam did they put in the Aussie 'S' I wonder, or was it the carb's?). The springs were a little lacklustre, too, so the ride was a little softer than necessary.

After the test-drive we had coffee and a chat about Triumphs, as the subject of the 10 Countries Run, and the Round Britain Reliability Run came up, and the ladies' eyes began to glaze over as their thoughts shifted to soft furnishings and wall paint colours, the Aussie man popped off to get his copy of the Classic car mag that featured the article on the RBRR and a picture of The Big Red Bus amongst others!

Anyway, despite my obvious infamy, he stuck to his guns and said he wasn't prepared to shift on the money, and as good as the car was, for $5k I reckon I should be able to hold out and find something as good or even with more poke for less. It would have been cool to have had a saloon with remote locking though!

Hmmm, there's a Mk1 Pi in Adelaide ... how much are flights to Adelaide I wonder?

Automatic for the people?

I'm back, and with tales of Triumph ... although not particularly triumphant, yet.

In Australia for a day and I've already found a sweet sounding mk2 2.5 pi to go and inspect (In fact I spotted it on the wibbly wobbly web before I even got out here). Fortunately it's in East Brisbane, just 5 minutes drive from Spring Hill, where I'm living. We went to check it out today and as I suspected from the advert on the web, it's one very smart looking car. The paintwork is spot on - it's very odd going to look at a Triumph and not being able to find any bodywork issues to worry about (sorry if that makes you jealous). As for the chrome; shiny like it should be!
Under the bonnet was pretty tidy, too, lots of new bits including PI gear, linkage, alternator, etc. It had the Bosch pump conversion, and loads of work had been done recently. Apparently it didn't leak oil, or burn much ... so I was tempted to ask for paperwork to check that it was actually a real Triumph. Best of all, though was that it even had the plastic covers still on the original door cards in the rear!
Unfortunately the guy selling wasn't the most knowledgeable of owners, which is a bit awkward (i.e. he didn't know if it was electric ignition or points, so I had to check myself). But that didn't detract too much from an obviously well looked after car.

We went for a spin, but I have no insurance yet, and as we were in the centre of Brisbane I let him do the driving.

The guy was haring along showing how good the newly built suspension and the Datsun driveshafts were and launching into corners. And here is where the problem with the car arises. When he came out of the corner and put the power down the automatic gearbox just took all the power away and we might as well have been out for a jolly sunday afternoon thrash in a pedalo! Oh god i'm coming over all 'Clarkson' about this now ... Who on earth invented these things? If I didn't want to change gear myself I'd hire a flooping chauffeur! Maybe a croc will one day bite one of my legs off, but until that day (well maybe a few days after as I'll probably suffer from shock) I won't be driving a slushmatic.

To cap it all, on the way home we saw a tidy looking green 2500 S going in the other direction ... and I just know that it had a lovely 4 speed with overdrive. *sigh*.

I've looked into the cost of getting the gearbox converted - thanks to all the Club Triumph guys who chipped in with tips and suggestions - but as the car's not exactly bargain basement and there seem to be enough around to choose from, I'm going to keep looking ...

Why hello there

Please, come in, take a seat.
This is my first blog entry, can't you see how proud I am? It might take me a while to accustom myself, but hang on in there.

You will notice something not particularly interesting about this site; no pictures. Sorry about that. Pretty useless, I know, but it may get remedied one day ... just like that rear crankshaft seal on the GT6, so don't hold your breath!

So far not a great deal to report.
I'm in Brisbane, which is as you might expect somewhat warmer than a Berkshire winter - 27 Celsius today. Everything is quite lovely - the girl, the apartment, the city.
One problem - a distinct lack of a Triumph. I went an entire fortnight without driving one when I was in Thailand a month ago, and I'm expecting it may be a little longer this time.
I'm going to look at one this afternoon, though. Ella (my lady friend) is particularly excited about it, which is excellent! A mk2 2.5 Pi is this afternoon's investigation - superlite's, KYBs all round, lots of nice stuff, and to ruin the whole thing, an autobox. Not good. Still we'll have a little look, as it is only up the road, and I'll report back. Hell it gives me something to write about.

Ok, that's my lot - time for some lunch.

Oh, and McJim, at least I still OWN A TRIUMPH!!!