OK, so it ain’t no Z but I thought I might show you guys why my handle is “tr3 hardtop”.
Some photos attached of the body off restoration I’m doing on my 1961 Triumph TR3 Hardtop, finally got it to the “roller” stage, and last week dropped the motor/gearbox in. I started with a rust free TR I found in Shelton a few years ago. The body restoration is being done by Monroe Restorations in Bridgeport. I traded a 1960 Bugeye race car for the restoration work so that has kept the cost reasonable, I am doing the mechanical work.
I spent many miles travelling in TR’s as a kid, my Dad was the East Coast Service Manager for Triumph USA, late 50’s early 60’s.
I meet lots of people who had one of these, or a friend or family member. It’s amazing how Datsun was able to capture the same affordable fun sports cars nine or ten years later....and they were able to offer so much more..horsepower and creature comfort.
Maybe I need to get Vinny B. to build a 510 motor to fit in it so I can keep up with Colin’s Z

I sure wish the frames on my Healeys had looked that solid. You just opened a whole can of memories for me, starting with that unique valve cover. What kind of shocks are you using, and do you still have one of those T-handled "can openers" to open and secure your bonnet with?

And by the way, what's a "rust free TR?". Never found one of those, even in the 60s.

My buddies had a few TR3s, two TR4s, and one (in the 70s) owned a Stag, which we all spent more time pushing than he spent driving.

Somewhere in my archives I have a picture of #44 (Tillius) chasing #33 (Sharp) over a hill at speed. The competition btwn those two effectively killed the Triumph in America, altho they were nothing to be taken lightly on the track.

Great work ~ I enjoyed seeing this. I hope you're proud of it.

BTW, you should check out our member Dave Russell's 1966 GT6 hardtop fastback. He has a picture of it in the Member Rides gallery.

FrankT

And where in the world did you find those old-school Michelin Xs on the front???

I was noticing the knock-off wires myself; haven't seen any of those
in quite some time. ~Rick~

They were what made sports cars, sports cars for me. I loved wire spokes, mounted with Michelin Xs or Dunlop Roadspeeds. Part of your tire changing kit was a big, hairy leather hammer to knock the spinners off with. Jacks were 12lb hydraulic shaft units which telescoped up in concentric circles and could lift the whole side of the car if properly balanced.

Balancing and cleaning all 5 wires was a day-long event. Then all you had to do was top off your SUs, check all the fluids, pull and check all 4 sparkies, drop the top (and in my case, the windscreen) and spend the night blasting about the back country roads in 3rd gear.

THEY CAME OFF OF OUR '70 Z!!! (Now that I said that in jest,
I'd better go back and see whether they're still on there!)
~Rick~

I have a couple of chromed "factory" T handles to open the bonnet with. They are also used for the spare tire compartment and to mount the sidescreens to the doors, no roll up windows here.
The Michelin's came with it and will have to be replaced, I think with Vredestein Sprint Classic's, the wheels have to be blasted and repainted first.
The car was originally delivered to Cie du Garages Monceau, Paris, France. Then it was shipped to Seattle, so I think the no salt on the roads help save it. The previous owner also went to great lenths to coat everything in site with some kind of coating, plus the engine leaking oil put a fine protective mist on the frame!
Attached 1968 photo of my first TR "I shuda kept that one" (Colin tells me those glasses are back in style). Got married a couple of months after that photo and it had to go, sold it for $400.00, I was happy I paid $200.00 for it.

Yup ~ those were the days! I paid $200 for my first Healey.

Why weren't we smarter back then? Why didn't we know everything was gonna change so much?

Amen, Frank! You've heard my intro to Z's wherein I spoke of some of
the cars my Dad had over the years which he sold or traded in for $50
or $200 or whatever. I would have worked a lot harder around the
house, done more dishes, raked more leaves, shoveled more driveways,
expanded the size of my paper route more, even behaved better, if only
my crystal ball were somewhat clearer.

I would gladly have bought his '30 Model A Sedan, '35 or '36 Chrysler
Airflow, '37 Ford Coupe, '40 Mercury 4-door Phaeton Convertible, '52
Ford Ranch Wagon, '56 Porsche 1600 Normal Coupe, '64 Alfa Romeo
Giulietta Spyder, and probably a few others that don't come to mind at
the moment, for the prices he got for them. Let's see, that right there
was 7 cars at $200 or less apiece =$1400. I think I could have gotten a
pretty good ROI (return on investment) from those...................
or either started my own museum!

Then there were my Mom's '51 Chevy Club Coupe, '63? Falcon Sprint,
'66? Corvair Spyder..........Dad's '72 Ford 302 pickup pulled his boat
trailer nicely, shoulda kept it when he died; it would be a nice truck to
pull the car trailer with........I'm having a bad case of the IF ONLYs.........

All Z Best,...............................Kathy & Rick

_________________
All Z Best,.......Kathy & Rick

1969 Z.CAR (#00013 10/69) 8/30/76
1969 ITSA.Z (#00171 11/69) 8/24/73
1970 OLD.Z (#06289 6/70) original owner
1971 510 2dr since 12/31/75
1969 1600 rdstr (our 160-Z)
1971 (#19851 1/71) sold
1975 75.Z (#01343 1/75)

And by the way, while taking nothing away from the nifty little Triumph soft tops (with clear rear windows you could actually SEE thru), there was nothing better than seeing one with a hardtop. There were a handful of cars back in the day which actually looked BETTER with the Chrome Dome locked on them than they did with the tops down ~

The Mercedes roadsters,
The Austin Healey roadsters,
The 1962 Corvette,
The XK-E Jag drophead,
The Cobra roadster,
The Daimler Dart SP250, and
The TR3s and 4s.

I'll be anxious to see a picture of this car when you have it all together and pop that hardtop on it.

One of the coolest thing was driving up to a stop light in the TR, reaching down and stubbing your cigarette out on the road, easy to do with the cut away doors and the low ride.
Frank, did you have any of these? These cars looked great with the factory hardtop, especially the Sebring Sprites.
I had two Austin Healey Bugeyes, the red one, a hill climb/auto-cross car and a right hand drive one.
PS that’s Colin behind the wheel. He wanted a Z even then.
Two more "I shuda kept".

My best bud had a '59 Kermit car, with a hardtop which we never used. I had a long string of 100-4 Healeys. One of the worst car wrecks I've ever survived was in a Bug Eye.

At a late Fall'66 teenage weekend party at a girlfriend's home at Syracuse University (her daddy was a Dean there), a bunch of us guys were standing on the front lawn when a cobra cruised past. We jumped into our cars and pursued. I had a 100-4, John had his BugEye, Bill had his XK-120, Bill Kaufman had my smoky old '59 Porsche, Richie had a beautiful Alfa Sprint, the other John had a Volvo 544 some other guy had a SAAB 2-stroke and his friend had a SAAB Sonnet.

We chased this cobra (who was easily keeping well ahead of us) all the way out of town to Hogsback Hill, which was our local hill climb road. The cobra stopped and we chatted awhile, then he said he was gonna blast the hill.

I was too low on fuel to play, so I rode shotgun in John's Bugeye. With only 65hp and two onboard, the little Sprite was actually not doing badly. I don't know our speed at the top of the hill when he hit the black ice, but the car did TWO full 360*s and backed into a stone wall along the roadside. The entire rear trunk ("cavern") was smushed flat against the rear wheels. When I saw it coming, I got "down in the cellar" (sat in the footwell and pushed up on the dashboard) until the impact.

It took seven of us 15 minutes, working with tire irons, to pry the bodywork far enough away from the rear wheels to let the car roll again. The fuel tank was intact and the frame seemed OK, but the car made some really weird noises for the rest of the time John owned it.

Your bonnet looks modified. John's eyes stuck up far more than yours do. He had a 'better frog' !

In high school several of my classmates had MGs and such, mostly TDs.
Leland King and his older brother Bob also had MG Midgets and AH Sprites
which they drove, rallyed, and autocrossed. Nobody could discern the
difference between the Sprites and Midgets, so they were called Spridgets.
FWIW, ~Rick~