lesapandre

Definitely a Regal vibe there Lord Melbury. Can you cash a cheque?

That's the actual original glass ceiling for women in the motor industry...

I told you to get that handbrake fixed...

Run out of petrol - silly moo...

Interesting to see them coming down the line side on. The wooden moving track-way can be seen flush with the floor at that point. Note: the pile of new steering wheels right. These would have gone on last to allow movement in the interior until the last moment. They would have been supplied by one of Standard-Triumph's sub contractors. Quite tidy for a 50's British car factory - thought there are some spectacular trip hazards to be seen...

"As I say, the workshop manual is spectacularly unclear as to where the link rod should be attached" I think this is somewhat an illustration of just how small an operation Jaguar were - and to an extent how hand-to-mouth. Sir William Lyons as CEO ruled costs there with a rod of iron, and anything superfluous like a comprehensive workshop manual would have been equally carefully costed. There must have been somebody in the Browns Lane factory writing these things. They would have never foreseen anyone using the manual 50 years after the car was sold!

"The brake light switch is a bastard to get to on these old Saabs, being behind the dash on the passenger side, so I have just lived with it". Getting down behind the dash with some contact cleaner and WD40 with a long thin flexible tube might be a bodge temp fix? Good luck with the collection and congratulations on the retirement!

She liked woodworking?

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase: "I'm going to the gym to get fitter"

Great news. Do you know - how did they move it? My experience of having my Landcruiser stolen was that it was either hiab'd or towed. No one had been in it. My experience was the same - I found it about a mile away in a car park. My theory was whoever took was going to see it's loss was followed up - and if it sat for a week or so then to come discreetly back for it in a more relaxed way maybe with a flatbed. Was a funny thing. So moral: if you do lose something go out and look for it. Popular classics are I suppose worth the parts at least. The (legitimate) marked in old Landcruisers is international.

Super - everything superfluous has been left out...

Thanks for the update. Very sad. It's not so much the breaking into I suppose - fairly easy with most old cars - it's the getting away with really - it's not joyriders - this is surely done with intent and thus pre-planning ie malice aforethought. There are some grim folk out there.

Can I ask do we know how it was stolen. I ask as an owner of old cars. I don't mean the specifics but the generality. Hot-wired and driven? Or towed? Or trailered or hiab'ed? How do these people get away with something so distinctive? At night or brazen during the day? So sorry to hear this.

The 'you pronounce it this way' is a tired advertising and publicity trope. BUPA like to be pronounced - boopar... I think Hyundai tried it recently too with ads - huuundai? All ridiculous really. Anyway - I'm going to add Golf Bluemotion. Sounds all eco. But you could say it's what you get if you eat crayons... It's all bollox really... just marketing

Yea don't say you've touched anything under the bonnet except to fill up. They will jump straight on it otherwise. I'd make a careful note of the mileage if it happens again and take a few pics. They will probably ask if it's been driven fast or some other 'get out of jail free' question...😄

Studebaker Dictator (name dropped after 1937 not surprisingly)

PICNIC: An excursion or outing with food usually provided by members of the group and eaten in the open The food provided for a picnic Pleasant amusingly carefree experience

But maybe for delivery from the Takeaway...

I'd doubt that. These are interesting cars but not really in so much demand - like a lot of the cars of the era they are very slow. Nice - but slow. When these were designed - car design overall was in a real flux - moving from traditional 'upright' to ponton styling and the three-box template. So I think Triumph had a stab at what they thought would look good and sell especially abroad. This is a US Australian ad.

Triumph Mayflower in literature: Here featured in a section from the introduction to novelist Julian Barnes book of essays about France - 'Something to Declare' - first published in 2001: "I first went to France in the summer of 1959 at the age of thirteen. My pre-adolescence had been car-free and island-bound; now there stood in front of our house a gun-metal-grey Triumph Mayflower, bought secondhand, suddenly affordable thanks to a legacy from Great Aunt Edie. It struck me then - as any car would have done - as deeply handsome, if perhaps a little too boxy and sharp-edged for true elegance; last year, in a poll of British autophiles, it was voted one of the ten ugliest cars ever built. Registration plate RTW1, red leather upholstery, walnut dashboard, no radio, and a blue metal RAC badge on the front. (The RAC man, portly and moustachioed, with heavy patched boots and a subservient manner, had arrived to enrol us. His first, preposterous question to my father - 'Now, sir, how many cars have you got?' - passed into quiet family myth.) That cars were intended not just for safe commuting but also for perilous voyage was endorsed the Triumph's subtitle, and further its illustrative hubcaps: at their centre was an emblematic boss depicting, in blue and red enamel, a Mercator projection of the globe. Our first expedition was from suburban Middlesex to provincial France. At Newhaven we watched nervously as the Mayflower was slung by crane with routine insouciance over our heads and down into the ferry's hold. The metal RAC badge at the front was now matched a metal GB plate at the rear. My mother drove; my father map-read and performed emergency hand-signals; my brother and I sat in the back and worried. Over the next few summers we would loop our way through different regions of France, mostly avoiding large cities and always avoiding Paris" (I think the book may be out of print now - that's really the only car related bit.)

All posh vehicles have different seat coverings in the rear. Chauffeur gets brown - plutocracy in the back get grey. All you need to complete the look is a passenger division, antimacassers, foot rests, sheepskin overugs and brass ashtrays.

Rear compartment heater connector pipe leaking coolant under the floor and dripping onto the exhaust where it is immediately evaporated?

A very good idea to get the panels mocked up and under real world conditions. Make any decisions much better. I'd recommend the Thetford area to anyone who like a place a bit off the beaten track - 'Breckland' and Thetford Forest are well worth a visit. https://www.visitbreckland.org.uk/

In the UK the Vauxhall FD Victor certainly had up to 1972. Taxi drivers liked column change I think - hence they persisted. I bet the Chrysler 180 made in Spain had the option. There is probably going to be some Far Eastern car still using column change!