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TR7 Previous Owners.

28th September 1999

I am in contact with the very first owner of the car, an estate agent in Merthyr Tydfil, who has pictures taken on the day of delivery, and the original steel wheels and trims. I think I have found the company that originally supplied the car but this yet to be confirmed.

12th November 1999

I'd better make a start on this page before it disappears altogether.

HOW IT ALL STARTED.

Soon after I had bought the car, I was checking out a local breaker of TR7's and generally finding out as much as possible about them; remember, it was all new to me at the time. Having just agreed to purchase a fresh air duct for the engine bay which I didn't know was missing, the proprietor and I were leaning on a scrap TR7 and chewing the cud: "This sunroof is the same as mine" I said. "Well, it's not a 1980 then".  "WHAT?"

My TR7 was not there, I was in the Peugeot.

"Should have a Webasto". Oops. Further discussion revealed wrong colour, wrong trim, ignition key on the wrong side etc. My heart sank. It was 1977/78 spec.

Although I never bought the car expecting any kind of return on my investment, he was suggesting that no one who new anything about Triumphs would ever touch it. So had I bought a worthless heap? Probably.

Now as a newcomer, it's easy to appear a bit gullible, and he must have picked up on this and let it run away with him. I could only find one i.d. plate on the car, the one on top of the suspension turret, under the bonnet. I had checked them with the Rimmers catalogue but the door one was gone. TR7 Breakerman showed me what the plate under the bonnet should look like. It was clearly different to mine.

"Mine's smaller than that", I said, "and it's corroded so I need to get a new one". "Ah, there you are then. It's definitely the wrong one because aluminium never corrodes (!!!), yours is a fake".

PLONKER ALERT !!!    "..aluminium never corrodes..."? Not even in moisture? In heat? What about moisture, then heat, then moisture again like under a car bonnet? And at the same time, rub it against a nice piece of steel to trap the wetness and make a bit of chemistry?

"You've got a ringer there mate." Oh bugger. "Easy to do; you just change over the plates and there you are. Could have been done years ago."

I came away all confused. Was it worth restoring to original or could I rip it up and customise it?

TRDC AGAIN

Still confused, I visited a classic car show at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham in May '99 to seek further help. Here I met Rupert and Justine, area organisers for the TR Driver's Club. I had already visited a couple of club stands but these two people were genuinely interested in the car, where others were more interested in whether or not I could make it to the curry nights! They are a wonderful couple.

Unfortunately, Rupert could only confirm the suspicions of TR7 Breakerman. the evidence seemed to be overwhelming:

My TR7's i.d. plate turned out to be a door one, with the chassis number just legible. The glass sunroof was wrong for 1980, it should have been a full width Webasto type. Russet Brown paint finished in 1978, as did red/black tartan interior trim and ignition/steering lock on the left of the column.   Hmmm.

THEORY

I saw it like this:  The car is probably a 1977. Let's go back to 1982 so the car is now 5 years old. Someone writes off a 1980 model and you get access to the i.d. plates. With a little effort you've now got a 2 year old car and consequently, a more valuable one.

It's easy to notice specification changes with hindsight, but I doubt whether many people would question the overall spec of a two year old car; would you know the difference between a 2 and five year old MR2 or MX5?

Well that was my theory at the time but how do I find the truth? Do I want to find the truth? I could end up with a big, hairy bloke in a vest chasing after me from his railway arch somewhere south of the River Thames. Best to just shut up really.

SEARCH

I know I could get a Heritage Certificate from Gaydon but that could turn out to be useless if the chassis number is wrong; I could be researching someone else's long dead car. I e-mailed the DVLA Swansea who were very quick to reply and very helpful, explaining that ALL records of previous owners and registration documents were available to the bona fide owner of any car, for a fiver.

Now I reckoned that if my theory was correct, somewhere along the line of ownership there would be a colour change. Engine number would be a problem; I couldn't find it because being stamped directly into the block, it had become illegible due to corrosion.

Whilst waiting for the reply, I started to read some of the TRDC mags that Rupert and Justine had given me and found a story of another TR7 which had been in storage for 18 months after leaving the factory, before being registered.

From this I learned two things: Maybe my theory was wrong, as 18 months is not far from the 2 years my car was apparently "short", and the immense value of joining clubs and talking to people of similar interest. (I am not normally a "clubby" type of person, hence my rejection of the "curry night" syndrome).

RESULT

The document duly arrived from Swansea and.........YEE-HAA!  WHOOPEE! and TALLY-HO OLD CHAP!  (I don't know why I put that last one in. ?)

They were all photocopies, but the original registration document answers the big question and throws up (I love that term) two more: Why no engine number from new? Why two dealers before being sold?

Got to go to work.

NOW WHAT?

Ok, so it's genuine, so it's not quite worthless, although it may be more saleable if it were a more attractive colour. It also becomes clear that the car is in remarkably original condition despite it's ELEVEN changes of ownership and 97,000 miles.

Reading small ads in the sales section of mags, I constantly read, "..genuine history.." or "...complete history.."  I presume this normally means the car in question has been stored in a garage for a long period hence low mileage, or has a low number of owners.

BOR-RING !

My car on the other hand, well, if only it could talk!

Reading the list of names and addresses, I began to wonder about them; they must be car enthusiasts to a certain degree and as such, would tend to remember the car more than a boring saloon. I wondered if any of them would be as interested in what has happened to this car, as I would be?

I reckoned that the original purchaser would be the key; he could confirm the original specification and besides, every story needs a beginning, middle but hopefully not an end. Just yet.

I carefully constructed a letter which I hoped would not be intrusive and included a picture of the car, and all my personal details as the last thing I wanted was something looking like a sales ploy. Before posting, I checked with Directory Enquiries to see if a phone number connected the name to the original address, and it did. I was quite confident.

Original Supplier.

I used the internet via newsgroup "uk.local.south-wales" to trace the original supplier, Howells of Merthyr. I am also indebted to the Aberfan and Merthyr Vale Youth and Community Project who found that although dealership closed in the early eighties and the site redeveloped for housing, the company still trades from Cardiff. I have yet to make contact with them but they in turn were supplied by Chastons of Blackwood who I haven't yet tried to trace. Loads still to do...

March 2000 and I have now received a very kind letter from a company called Rycar who, it would seem, are a large company who now own what is left of Howells. I was slightly disappointed to learn that the Howells group had been broken up and sold off years ago and all records have now disappeared or been destroyed.

April 2000.   Heritage Certificate

This seems to be a good place to insert some of the information from the HC:

Chassis No.             TCG 110826 - F

Engine No.              CG 27624 - HE

Exterior Colour        Russet Brown

Trim Colour            Red

Dates Built              18 - 20 June 1979

Date Despatched      21 June 1979

Destination             Chastons of Blackwood, Blackwood, Gwent.

Equipment             Steel wheels, two-valve engine, Five speed gearbox, heater (!), Sundym tinted glass,                              laminated winscreen, inertia reel seatbelts, 185/70 HR-13 Goodyear G.800 S tyres.

Registration            First registered on 1st August 1980 in Cardiff

So it would seem.....

...that it could have been ordered for a new "V" registration in 1979, and someone "welshed" on the deal. :-)   Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

I would like to apologise to every Welshman an the planet for that joke. Every Welshman alive or dead, and anyone who has ever been Welsh in the past.  Apart from Anthony Hopkins and Max Boyce.

OWNER No. 1.   1st August 1980 to 16th April 1983.

Mr Peter Phillips responded by telephone within a week. He was genuinely pleased to hear about the car and has provided some very interesting facts: the car was a "demonstrator"(I have to wonder who's demonstrator, Howells or Chastons?) supplied with factory side stripes but no sunroof, that was fitted later by Skyport, Cardiff. The original steel wheels were soon replaced by Wolfrace slotmags and a towbar fitted for towing a speedboat!

I sent Peter a set of photographs and he responded again by telephone to say that he had found the original steel wheels in his father's attic!! Apparently, a friend of Peter's also had a TR7 around the same time, a White one, and during a recent conversation between the two men about their old cars, it emerged that the friend parked his TR7 in his garage on blocks where it has remained for around 15 years! He may consider restoring it I understand. Or he could of course sell it using the words "...genuine history"..

So here is where GNY 424W gets launched onto the unsuspecting public roads:

It's August 1980 and Margaret Thatcher has been ruling for about a year and we are heading into recession. A young, free and single (and successful) Estate Agent in Merthyr Tydfil snaps up a bargain TR7 for a piffling £3500 ish as sales of luxury items seem to be affected first during a recession, Howells must have been very glad of the sale.

The car gets loved and used a lot for two years before.... Oh no! What's this? A marriage? Our car proves to be very impractical to family life and eventually has to be traded in for a Ford Sierra. Aagh! The ultimate disgrace for any sportscar! :-)

Owner No. 2.    16th April 1983 to 18th April 1984.

Owner No.3   18th April 1984 to 22nd April (I think; writing unclear) 1985. Awaiting reply.

Lanehouse Service Station, Weymouth, Dorset.

Owner No.4   14th May 1985 to 19th July 1988. "Not at this address" and no clues as to a forwarding address. Back to the drawing board on this one.

Owner No.5   19th July 1988 to 2nd June 1990. "Previous occupier moved 8 years ago, address unknown." Oops.

Owner No.6   2nd June 1990 to 5th February 1991. Awaiting reply.

David Bartlett Cars, Ringwood, Hampshire. Then Haven Cars (Clive Godsell), Poole, Dorset.

Owner No.7   3rd December 1991 to 7th September 1992. Awaitng reply.

Countryside Car Centre (Landview Service Centre), Chelmsford, Essex. Then to Chelmsford Car Auctions.

Owner No.8   21st September 1992 to 17th June 1996 (or March!)

Mr D. Limond of Southend-on-Sea kindly replied and told me that he bought the car from the Auction for £420 and sold it to a father and son for around £175 for renovation. I would love to know the condition of the car when it was sold here.

Owner No.9   17th June 1996 to 14th October 1998

I bought GNY from the son who had moved to Welshpool.  It had a Tax disc which had expired in April 1998, when I brought home.

Owner No.10   14th October 1998 to present....ME!

Pete Whitehorn, Leicestershire. I paid £275.

17th March 2000

Only sent out six enquiry letters 2 days ago but already had two back: one from Mr Limond and another from the occupier of the address for owner No.7 with a forwarding address. Nice that someone took the trouble to let me know where the guy moved to.

20th March. Another one from Southampton but owner No.4 has moved on.

21st March. No.5 ditto, I'll look for a newsgroup for Southampton or Hampshire.

14th April. Just received the Heritage Certificate, interesting, page back up for details.

Late November 2002

Well, would you believe it? I work for one of the largest supermarket chains as a driver and just the other day I was told that I would have to deliver to our stores in Newport (South Wales) and Blackwood. I gladly accepted and thought it a great opportunity to try and trace something of the fate of Chaston's, the original dealer who ordered this car.

Luckily a couple of the warehouse operatives were very talkative and I asked one of them if he could remember who the British Leyland dealer was in the town around 1980. "Oh, um, Chaston's". According to his memory, Mr Chaston was quite the pillar of local society and Mrs Chaston a Magistrate.

He went on to tell me that the showroom was actually on the site where I was standing at the time, where our brand new store is! It would be nice to do the real anorak thing and find some pictures of the showroom. Later maybe.

E-Mail me

This inspired at least one other bloke to trace his cars previous owners: www.MyTR7.co.uk