“My Little Journey” September, 1999

I have always loved the Triumph TR6.  Not necessarily the electrical workings of one but the lines and sound under the bonnet are perfection in my book.  The lead designer of a lot of the Triumph’s, Giovanni Michelotti, got it right most of the time and though Germany’s Karmann (of Karmann-Ghia fame) did the facelift, Giovanni’s aesthetic is all over the TR6.

As a kid there was a yellow one that I would regularly see tooling around my neighborhood and the look of it never left my imagination.  So once I moved to So Cal in 1996 I set my sights on buying one.  I got involved with the great folks at the Southern California Triumph Owners Association (SCTOA) to learn as much as I could about the cars and who I could get to help me restore one.  In 1997 I finally found a rust free 1971 TR6 with the much sought after “overdrive option” from a guy who had already stripped it down but was going through a divorce and needed to sell it.  I quickly snapped it up and began the year long process of buying the odd part on Ebay, vintage car shows, and scouring the pages of the Moss Motors catalog for after market parts.  Luckily the SCTOA has a bevy of knowledgeable mechanics and I found a true friend in Greg Cole.   He let me keep my car among his throng of old Brit bangers and on most weekends I would drive to his place in Chino, CA to work on it.  Finally in late 1998 she was back on the road.   Old Blue was a fairly reliable companion for 6 years but I had to let it go when I moved to the East Coast in 2005.

I recently came across some of my old Triumph memorabilia and this story I wrote that got published in the SCTOA’s monthly membership newsletter/book back in 1999. I am still looking for my pile of TR6 photos to post.

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