John Day...
> ...TR3B on Ebay right now. One other curiosity about these
> cars is that supposedly they had started to run out of the letters for the
> front cowl, so some actually have no lettering from the factory....
Sumner...
> Yes, and some front cowl letters were smooth, and some were rippled. They
> used whatever was laying around.
The "smooth" letters are the same, of course, as the TR4 (and Herald and
Spitfire, etc.). I've always been just a bit skeptical about TR3Bs that have
no lettering at all; at the same time, I've met enough 3B owners who swore
their cars were 101% original that I certainly accept the possibility that
some had no lettering at all. Of course, I also suspect that, by the time of
production of the 3B, all new replacement front aprons were supplied without
holes pre-punched for the letters, since there were two styles of letters,
each with different hole spacing.
But that's the fun and charm of the 3B: low production, sporadic production,
"off-site" production (having been farmed out to S-T subsidairy Forward
Radiator Co.), production concurrent with the successor model with which it
shared some components....
And speaking of that eBay car, has anyone else ever seen an ORIGINAL TR3B
with Strombergs and the Smiths PCV valve, or is that a replacement or updated
engine?
--Andy
Andrew Mace, President, The Vintage Triumph Register
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