Becoming a city boy

LET ME TELL YOU about a classic enthusiast – who I had never previously met – called Bruce Macmillan. Bruce lives in South-West London (as do I) and owns a lovely Jaguar 340, a rip-snorting Porsche and a British low-volume car called a Trident Clipper, of which fewer than 40 were made. Bruce had entered the last of these into the London Concours on 5-6 June, an event for which, coincidentally, I am on the steering committee. He was also having some work done on the Clipper at Enginuity in Acton, the outfit that has been home to my preferred Triumph gurus for more than 20 years. So when Bruce couldn’t get the Trident to or from the Concours, he put all the above information together and came up with the wheeze that I should deliver and collect his car… and hang on to it for a week before returning it. It wasn’t a hard sell, to be fair.

So, what is a Trident Clipper? Received wisdom says it is a TVR Trident that, when TVR failed to manufacture that car, was put into production by Bill Last. It is rather more complicated than that, but I don’t want any lawsuits so suffice to say that when I once suggested to TVR Trident designer Trevor Fiore that he was also responsible for the Clipper, his reaction was akin to when a former colleague on the Reading Evening Post asked Patrick Moore what had first attracted him to astrology.

What we can say is that the Clipper (unlike the later V6powered Trident Venturer and Triumph six-powered Tycoon) packs a glorious 289 V8 into a Healey-alike chassis topped by a light glassfibre body. After a good natter with the Enginuity boys, I started up the Clipper and headed off, immediately noticing it was quite heavy of clutch and gearchange, but that the bewitching 289 as usual compensates for all ills.

Driving into central London isn’t something I’d like to do every day, but out of the rush hour it can still be a thrill and I had a superb journey the day before the concours, slithering around on slippery roads as the 289 pushed all its power through the skinny rear tyres. But the sun shone on the showfield for the next two days and allowed car and driver to dry out. Arrival was as nothing in comparison to departure; I exited the Honourable Artillery Company to a barrage of bloggers’ iPhones, and blipped obnoxiously up Bunhill Row with a snaffled description board and some toiletries for Bruce, though sadly no trophy.

A week later, after using it at every opportunity, I returned the Trident to Bruce and reflected on my time with this charmingly bonkers car. Yes, dear readers, I am very much available for similar ventures. Thank you, Bruce.