My Triumph

By Dawn Nichols

It was fall of 1980- the phone rang- it was my husband Mike- he said, ‘Meet me on Garrettson Ave.- I want you to see something!’

My first thought was,’ Oh boy!?!’ Another car to restore-I wonder what it could be this time! (I had put my order in years ago for a’little red sportscar’ but of course, he never seemed able to find one of those!!)

Well, anyway, I left immediately. I saw his car on Garrettson and pulled over. What I saw was an old, ugly, rusty, black Triumph sitting in this front yard. My thoughts were, ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding- there’s no way that thing is restorable!!’ Well I got out of my car and went into the yard by my husband who said, ‘Well what do you think?’- (of course, I didn’t tell him that I thought it was horrible!! No way could this thing be fixable!!) He told me it was a 1961 TR3A and the owner was moving and had to sell it (Meanwhile, the saying “There’s a sucker born every minute’ seemed to keep popping into my head!) I did like the body style but there was very little ‘body’ left! So, Mike said ‘Well what do you think?’ Having the confidence in his body work that I do, I said ‘I love it!!’

Well, we had it towed to the garage and, once there, started worrying about things like ‘Where in the world are we going to find parts for this?!?’ (Nice time to think about a small (?) detail like that!) After making a few phone calls we found out about a place called ‘Moss Motors’ in California. ‘Oh Great!’ I said, ‘Now it will take months to get the parts we need’ Well we needed the parts so we placed an order. Imagine our surprise when the order arrived only 10 days later! ‘Fantastic!’ (Now we have our New Jersey warehouse, shipping to East Coast customers is generally even faster. Ed.)

We started on the car immediately and slowly but surely, it actually started looking half-way decent! All the while we worked on it Moss Motors was there whenever we needed anything! Anyone who works on cars knows how discouraging it can be if you have to wait too long for parts!

In May of 1981 MY TRIUMPH was finished and it was beautiful! I couldn’t believe it was the same car that was towed to the garage in the fall!

I have had my TR3A for 3 years now. I drive it daily (in the summer.) I have only entered it in 2 car shows so far but it won 1st and 3rd place trophies!! Needless to say, it’s ‘my baby’ and I wouldn’t sell it for anything! (No one but me has ever driven it well, I did let my husband drive it about 5 times!!)

Dawn Nichols of Michigan City, Indiana submitted this story to us, for which she will receive a $10.00 Gift Certificate.