TRIUMPH 2500TC
RUN BY Greg Macleman
OWNED SINCE June 2017
PREVIOUS REPORT Nov 2021
I’ve never counted myself as one of the health-and-safety brigade: nothing makes my blood run cold like the thought of filling in a pointless risk assessment. But becoming a parent – at least in this day and age – makes you look at things a bit differently. Since my daughter arrived, my mum has been full of advice on everything from curing colds to helping the wee one sleep, and it’s remarkable how many remedies seem to involve alcohol of some kind. I survived, she’s quick to remind me, but I can’t help wondering how.
I spent much of my early youth perched on the parcel shelf of an MGB or squeezed in between my parents on the front bench of a Plymouth Gran Fury – usually ‘un-pinged’ – but I’ve been very wary of taking Sadie out in the Triumph. For a start it doesn’t have Isofix, a neat system for anchoring the baby seat to the chassis of most modern cars. Then there’s the lack of crumple zones, glass that will probably shatter into a million pieces on impact, and a cocktail of unburnt hydrocarbons and sizzling oil leaks that cling to your hair and clothes after every drive; goodness knows what it would do to her tiny, sponge-like lungs.
I eventually overcame my fear after being inspired by Duncan Shaw, who I’d met at the Le Mans Classic in 2018. He had recently completed a tour of Norfolk with his two young kids strapped into his 1979 Porsche 911SC, so I thought I would finally bite the bullet and fixed our baby seat in place using the period Britax belts. Sadie loved it, enjoying the noise, bumpy ride and clear view, even if we didn’t venture further than nearby Lingfield Park and rarely topped 30mph. And I loved it, too. She might only be 11 months old, but it felt like a real bonding moment.
I ventured further afield with my old neighbour, Nick, as we drove down to the Goodwood Revival. We got caught in a heavy downpour along the way that highlighted the leaking windscreen, and it also wasn’t running quite right. I’d noticed after a long run to a photoshoot near Canterbury that the idle had dropped on the return leg, and it seemed to be struggling to get up to temperature. The electric fan was kicking in too soon so I backed it off slightly, but it’s still not getting as hot as I would like – and when it does warm up, the mixture could do with adjustment.
Despite the running problems, I decided to get the car valued following its engine and suspension work. Club Triumph’s Clive Senior made the journey up from Brighton just before Christmas to give the car a once-over, and it was terrific to check out his racy Spitfire – a superb track-focused classic with a number of cool modifications, not least a Subaru rear differential. I’m hoping for a decent valuation given the work that’s gone in over the past five years, but no sum of money will match seeing Sadie’s face light up in the rear-view mirror.