Hello listers,
While at work today, one of my co-workers alerted me to the following
articles from the NY Times; thought I would share and pass them along to you.
Jon
==================================
New York Times Online
June 7, 2002
Blood, Sweat, Tears and a Lot of Oil Leaks
By JIM MOTAVALLI
KATHY MANGAN, a freelance writer in Hagerstown, Md., has owned her
British-made 1980 Triumph TR8 for 18 years, so there really was no excuse
for her thinking she could drive it without incident to Boston last
December. After being stranded regularly by the car throughout her
ownership, Ms. Mangan should have known what to expect.
Here's what happened: The car refused to start without jumper cables, a
familiar experience for Triumph owners. One block out, the passenger door
suddenly flew open and refused to close again. Ms. Mangan's mechanic wasn't
surprised to see the car limp into the service bay.
When she set out again, the TR8 made it at least several miles before
starting to lose power. Opinions differed as to whether the fuel line or
distributor was to blame, but everyone agreed the car was not going to make
it to Boston without a tow.
Ms. Mangan's story is a familiar one among British-car owners. In the
1950's and 60's before the Japanese had a foothold in America Triumphs,
MG's, Austin-Healeys, Lotuses and Jaguars ruled the import lots. In the
mid-60's, MG and Triumph alone were selling 60,000 cars a year in the
United States, 85 percent of their global volume.
The cars were rakish, and fun to drive compared with the bloated American
land barges of the time, but nobody ever called them reliable. The tiny
four-cylinder engines with their adventurous Skinner Union carburetors ran
on an idiosyncratic schedule, and quality was so poor that parts flew off
regularly. The roofs often leaked water, which puddled with the oil
dripping from the engine block.
But there is a saving grace about British sports cars. Even while their
owners are becoming stranded, they love them. "There's something wonderful
about not knowing how your trip will turn out," Ms. Mangan said. There are
thousands still on American roads, even though the last of the true British
sports cars were imported in the early 80's.
What most British-car owners share (other than repair bills) is a stoic's
sense of gallows humor. A common joke like, "Why do Triumph TR7's have fog
lights? To light up the tow rope," makes a small point about British
technology, but says boatloads about British character.
Before wisely buying a Mazda Miata, Tod Bryant, a Norwalk, Conn.,
photographer, was a serial British car owner. He took delivery of his
first, a brand-new Triumph-engine Morgan, in Europe in 1967. To his
chagrin, he discovered that the car had no outside door handles and he
couldn't reach in because it didn't have optional sliding window "side
curtains." He had also expected the car to come with a working clutch, but
within weeks he was forced to set off in pouring rain to return it to the
dealer.
"You had to secure about 20 of those ridiculous lift-dot fasteners around
the windshield to get the top up, and it still leaked like a sieve," Mr.
Bryant recalled grimly. "Water was blowing through the side curtains and
around the windshield. The heater was useless, of course." The latter is an
absolute given in countless British cars. One Jaguar owner marvels at the
engineering feat that allowed the car's engine to overheat in winter while
maintaining Arctic temperatures in the cabin.
When Mr. Bryant returned to the United States in 1968, he replaced the
Morgan with a 1959 Austin-Healey "Bug-Eye" Sprite that, he said, "just died
on me." Next was a Triumph TR3B that in only a few months of ownership went
through one front suspension, two coils, two voltage regulators, a clutch,
a rebuilt head and a brake master cylinder. "I finally sold it for $100,"
he said.
The last straw was another Triumph, a 1967 TR4A. "It popped out of second
gear, and you could put your finger through the frame in several places,"
he said. The rear suspension, featuring the diabolical lever arm shock an
outmoded British shock absorber that survived in some models through the
1980's was regularly shaken to bits by potholes. "Every weekend I'd be
underneath it, rebuilding the suspension while a crowd of street people
gave me unsolicited advice," he said.
Is Mr. Bryant cured? Not at all. "If I had a garage, I'd buy a British car
tomorrow, probably another TR3," he said.
In the purgatory of British cars, much of the blame is heaped on the famous
manufacturer Joseph Lucas, also known as "the Prince of Darkness" and "the
Father of the Intermittent Windshield Wiper."
But in trying to set right the many problems in a British car, the hapless
American owner happens upon the fact that the British have their own names
for everything, many of which sound like they first appeared in
"Winnie-the-Pooh." Does the repair call for a wrench? It's a spanner to
them. Trouble under the hood? It's the bonnet. Trying to find the trunk
release? Sorry, that's the boot. A few other choice translations: fender
equals wing, the rear window is a backlight, the glove box is a cubby, an
electrical ground is earth, gas is petrol, a turn signal is an indicator,
and a muffler is a silencer. When some drivers hear that the word for "ball
joint" is "trunnion" and a generator is a dynamo, they must feel like
giving up.
Not everyone agrees with the poor reputation of British cars. "There are no
bad cars, only bad owners," said Jeff Burns, whose garage, Motorhead LTD,
in Fairfax, Va., specializes in them. "If you restore a British sports car
to a proper standard, it will be an excellent daily driver." The stories of
failing carburetors and fading electrical systems, he said, are a form of
folklore fostered by dodgy, unrestored cars and by poorly performing Asian
replacement parts.
"If they sit for a long time, things start to corrode and Lucas gets the
blame," said Mr. Burns, somewhat defensively.
Ian Young, who once ran Triumph and Austin dealerships in Niagara Falls,
Ontario, agrees that British cars have been unfairly slagged. "It's like
the Corvair," he said, referring to the much-maligned 1960's Chevy. "Once
it was tarred and feathered, nobody would acknowledge its virtues."
Pierre Kanter, a Frenchman who now lives in New York, sees few virtues in
British cars. For that reason, he takes a perverse pleasure in buying them
in the United States and sending them back where they came from. Mr. Kanter
sells the cars to collectors in Britain, as well as on the Continent. He
was particularly glad to see the last of a 1967 Series 1 Jaguar E-Type he
owned for seven months. "It was orgasmic to look at, but it only ran for
one of the seven months," Mr. Kanter said. "I've never had so much trouble
with a car. Just try keeping three carburetors in tune. It leaked oil, the
gauges never worked, and the Lucas electrical system was a nightmare." The
E-Type shipped off to Belgium and is now said to be making some European's
life miserable.
Underneath it all, however, Mr. Kanter admits to being just another
helpless addict. "If I had a choice between a Miata and an MG," he said, "I
would take the MG."
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe triumphs
///
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
|