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Triumph

First car

My very first car was a 1937 Morris 12/4 which I bought from a garage in Monkspath by the name of David Prophet.I had a £7-10shilling tax rebate while I was working at Burton and Cole in Ruston Street in Ladywood and I saw an ad. in the Mail for this car and was determined to have it.Monkspath was then on the far side of the world but I had to go and get this car.I caught a Midland Red in the Bull Ring and went to Monkspath and bought it.No license and no insurance but the salesman let me have it,no trouble.I drove it home to Ladywood,where I lived and proceeded to paint it in very strange colours so consequently could not drive it anywhere as it was so noticeable and I got stopped by the police who actually let me off for driving with no licence etc. as long as I scrapped it.As it was my first car I was a bit miffed but I went and got driving lessons and passed my test when I was just seventeen.I then went and got insurance but on that very day someone broke in the car through the roof and set fire to it.Gutted or what?I then had a succession of cars until I was about twentyand have not had one since.The last time I bought petrol it was about 4/6 a gallon.I walk everywhere now and have probably one of the most underused free bus passes in Brum.Bob Shale.
 
Morris 12/4

Hi

Is this the one.
Now a BMW dealer David Profit.
Whole area full of Car dealerships.
Great Story.

Mike Jenks
 
morris 12/4

Hi,Mike
Thanks for the picture but that one looks a bit more modern than the one I had.The one I had was,I think,a bit more angular than the one you have posted.I could be wrong as it was a very long time ago.46 years to be exact!
 
Hi,all.I went down to Broughton Road today on one of my walkabouts and had a look down Crick Lane which is at the bottom of the garden of my old house and it didn't look any different to what it looked when I lived there so maybe my old car is still in the back garden!!!!.I did knock the door but got no reply so will have to wait a it longer to find out if it is still there.BobS.
 
triumph car

the mayflower was a very nice car despite the lack of disk brakes,indicater winkers,heater, seat belts, syncromesh gear box, radio. It did have an engine you could understand and repair though not like the ones today . my wife and I owned one in 1956, swopped it for a ford "Cortina".
 
Triumph Mayflower.

Geff. The Mayflower, it was a bugger to change that manifold to exhaust pipe gasket even up on a car hiost, also had a lot of free play in the steering box. I loved the style of the car.
 
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Hi,
The Mayflower was built in smaller numbers than the larger Renown. The Renown had a Standard Vanguard engine and they were built in Coventry. HJ Mulliner, the coachbuilders, in Small Heath. (Golden Hillock Road I think), were taken over by Standard, and I believe that was the only place where the Mayflower was ever built. The Renown was often called 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' on account of the body style.
Mulliner's was the only place to build the Vanguard Estate too. My late dad worked there for several years untill the place closed down in the 1950's. (I'm talking about the Mk1 Vanguard, I don't know where the later marks of the estate were built).
Spooner:)
 
Hi

Great article on Mulliners. Alhough I worked at Rover
Solihull I alway's felt the atmosphere at Canley.
Mergers etc lead me to Canley in its last few years.
By then the Factory had gone and we were in the Huge Engineering and Styling area.
During the 60's and 70's Canley produced massive amounts of Vehicles.
Clearly its hey day's were the Spitfire and Tr6 era with the 2000 range.
Coupled with the 1300 1500 1850 vaqriants it was compatible
with Longbridge.
Sadly it lapsed into decline politics etc I was nevere really convinced
Triumph 2000?2500 range never has quality problems sold in their
thousands. A great place but gone now.
 
Hi

Just had an idea.
Wrote a book some years ago on my life at Leyland.
I decided to re-write some bits and bobs as I felt
there was a fair amount of Tribal hysteria written.
I was fortunate to work at the heart of this buisness
for nearly 35 years.
I hope my article will help a little I had no axe to grind either way.


Mike Jenks
 
Hi Mike

Just finished reading your book,I found it an interesting read and nice to hear from somebody who was at the heart of it.I used to work close to Longbridge at a Rover dealer in Tessall Lane till 1998 then was transferred to Rocky Lane till Rover closed.Knew a few engineers from Powertrain,engines and transmissions as I had to deal with them on a regular basis.

Just a thought have you come across this site www.austin-rover.co.uk
Although it is called Austin Rover it deals with all things BL related, the guy who runs the site is a motoring journalist and is an Austin Rover nut.He is always looking for info from people like yourself.

Regards

Dave
 
The above posted link is enthralling. Thanks for that. I have put it into favourites. Sorry to see the factories and left over cars being stripped and presumably erased by the Chinese. You would have thought that the government would have spared the former employees and British people that considering the small change that was got for it. So damaging to morale I would have thought. From the article it does not seem likely that further production will take place there. Sad beyond words.
 
Hi
The old car on the left of the pic. is a prewar Ford Y model. When I started work, at Meteor Garage, Moseley, after my army National Service,in 1950, I worked on a few of them, it was quite a job getting a reasonable brake on them, I remember.

Barney Martin
 
Hi,
The Mayflower was built in smaller numbers than the larger Renown. The Renown had a Standard Vanguard engine and they were built in Coventry. HJ Mulliner, the coachbuilders, in Small Heath. (Golden Hillock Road I think), were taken over by Standard, and I believe that was the only place where the Mayflower was ever built. The Renown was often called 'the poor man's Rolls-Royce' on account of the body style.
Mulliner's was the only place to build the Vanguard Estate too. My late dad worked there for several years untill the place closed down in the 1950's. (I'm talking about the Mk1 Vanguard, I don't know where the later marks of the estate were built).
Spooner:)
Mulliners were in Adderley Park Rd.
 
Hi
The old car on the left of the pic. is a prewar Ford Y model. When I started work, at Meteor Garage, Moseley, after my army National Service,in 1950, I worked on a few of them, it was quite a job getting a reasonable brake on them, I remember.

Barney Martin

Barney,

I have sent you a PM.

Darby.
 
Mike I have just read through your book and also found it fascinating inasmuch as it answered some questions for me. I have just put the Rover long service awards photo up on Friends Reunited - you may recognise a few faces. I am the once good looking but haggard one on the back row.
 
You are wrong, the Devon had its headlights out on the front of the wings not on the inner panels. E.

Quite right, it's an A70 Hampshire. I had one, JAC 102, and still have the old green logbook, somewhere. My uncle gave it to me when it became beyond economical repair. I used it as a field jalopy and had great fun with it until I managed to break the gearbox by inadvertantly changing from third to first at some speed!
I later found that it had been quite a rare car as relatively few had been made......oh well:rolleyes:

Ian
 
This is a really interesting thread - I love reading about old cars, even though when I owned old cars I hated their guts....especially when trying to get one to start in falling snow!

When I get time I'll have a proper look at that Austin-Rover link. I never worked there (but knew a lot of blokes who did) but visited regularly when they had a foundry and I was employed by Foseco Ltd who manufactured foundry chemicals. What I recall most was having to go there in a BL car otherwise they wouldn't let you on-site! Foseco had a couple of Morris 1300's purely for visiting Longbridge and Cowley. Once I couldn't get a Morris and arrived in all that was available - a Cortina. The swines turned me round and I had to park miles down the Bristol Road and walk back carrying my equipment with me. But it was fun in those days, before the world took itself too seriously.

My last memories of Longbridge aren't so good, though. I had to visit the Purchasing Dept on numerous occasions and (I've said this before) the way most of the buyers treated suppliers was appalling. Eventually my company (won't say which one, but by then I'd left Foseco) decided to pull out of Rover - we were losing money on every delivery. We were told forcibly by a senior buyer that no-one turns his back on Rover! But we did. To be fair, the buyers were under so much pressure from above to reduce costs that they tried to acheive that by any and every means - same as they do today elsewhere! As a supplier to the automotive industry my company is lucky to make 8% profit on what we sell - we are actually told how much we can make!

Big Gee
 
Big Gee - Rover would love to have made 6% profit but it was just a dream. Anyone with sense would have put their money into a Building Society and got better returns but a lot less fun.
 
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