11/12/09

Wow! Nadine dropped off some paperwork yesterday. Truly amazing stuff, to the history geek in me at least. One was a letter from Standard Triumph making sure she had made arrangements to have the car shipped to the US since she was taking delivery at the factory. There was a letter from the Cunard Line saying that the car was on board the RMS Britannic (no, not the sister ship of the Titanic, I thought the same thing though. Apparently the White Star Line had three ships named Britannic over the years. This was the third, absorbed into the Cunard Line when the two companies merged after the depression, then decommissioned and scrapped in 1960.) sailing from Liverpool to New York on, get this, November 11, 1958! Exactly fifty one years ago, “my” TR-3 was aboard the Britannic headed to New York. There is an invoice from the New York Port Authority stating that the car had arrived and the Cosmoline had been cleaned off. The next item is a copy of the letter she sent to Standard Triumph requesting that they pay to have the scratch incurred during shipping fixed. A letter from Standard Triumph agreeing to pay the requested $20.00 followed. Finally, there is the invoice for said repairs from... dang, I don’t remember the dealer name right now, but Earle Hughes Triumph is stuck in my head. I know Earle Hughes had the Datsun dealership in west Fort Worth in the early seventies, maybe he sold Triumphs in the fifties? Anyhoo, I'm sure she’ll have the original bill of sale and a few other documents for me as time goes on. I'm getting more and more excited about this project. Of course I'm also beginning to realize the importance of keeping it as original as possible, what with all the documented history and stuff. I'm hoping that the paint is acceptable enough that a patina restoration can be done because a half-assed show quality attempt would be worse, in my opinion. I think it deserves a full restoration to original quality condition, but I know I cannot afford it right now. Well, we’ll just have to see how it looks once it sees daylight again. Oh, remember how I said it was stored in a garage? A better description of the amount of protection would be to compare the garage to a barn. It is a garage, but it affords protection closer to what Juan would expect from a barn. That is what I'm trying to say. Here is where my problem lies, I know the interior needs to be replaced. If I go all out with a nice new interior, a shabby exterior is going to look way out of place. I guess I'm just gun shy about doing paint and body work because I know it could get into the multiple hundreds of dollars pretty quickly. I'd settle for a good “ten footer” paint job, but this car probably deserves better. I wonder if Northside Upholstery could do a “weathered look” new interior. You know, make it look like it has been driven for 90,000 miles but well taken care of, that sort of thing. I suppose the new vinyl could be artificially aged, but I don't know how to do that. Feh, I need to get the thing out in the open, assess the condition, and then make plans. All of this speculation is pretty much worthless until then. OK, I'm done talking to y'all for today. Hopefully John and I will have gone to the shop and hooked up the trailer by the time y'all read this. If not, well, y'all might never know. And it won't be important either way.