Triumph TR-4 gets new shoes
Posted: Wed May 06, 2015 11:49 pm
Over the winter I applied for and received a certified factory record for my Triumph TR-4 from the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust. The record verifies things for me like a match of the original engine and body numbers with the original chassis number provided. It also confirmed that my forensic analysis, when we removed paint and stripped the interior was accurate. It was originally a black car with white convertible top and red leather interior.
Among the other things I learned was that the car arrived in America at Jacksonville, Florida rolling on whitewall Goodyear tires/tyres. Earlier in the spring I went ahead and purchased some nice vintage whitewall tires for the car and finally got around to swapping them today. I thought it would be fun to get the car back as close as possible to how it looked when it came off the ship. So what do you think? My guess is that the whitewall look was an American thing and that many of you from the homeland may frown on what I've done.
Interestingly, while the car is titled as a 1964 model, it was built on June 19, 1962!!! My understanding is that imported cars were title dated by the purchase date back in those days. It was shipped out of Samuel Williams Wharf, Dagenham aboard the vessel 'Helga Oldendorff'. I was able to find a picture of the old girl with a Google image search.
Among the other things I learned was that the car arrived in America at Jacksonville, Florida rolling on whitewall Goodyear tires/tyres. Earlier in the spring I went ahead and purchased some nice vintage whitewall tires for the car and finally got around to swapping them today. I thought it would be fun to get the car back as close as possible to how it looked when it came off the ship. So what do you think? My guess is that the whitewall look was an American thing and that many of you from the homeland may frown on what I've done.
Interestingly, while the car is titled as a 1964 model, it was built on June 19, 1962!!! My understanding is that imported cars were title dated by the purchase date back in those days. It was shipped out of Samuel Williams Wharf, Dagenham aboard the vessel 'Helga Oldendorff'. I was able to find a picture of the old girl with a Google image search.
