Jaguar

From London Bridge, 37 posts

I looked in my copy of Top Gear magazine and found Jaguar do now make an estate as you stated. An X type but it reduces the mystique of the Jaguar marque even if I have never seen one as I do not mix in them circles; horsey pony club.



As for the Triumph 2500 a car once owned by a member of my family until it was deemed un economic and traded in for a I do not know what. You now tell me they are worth thousands why is that? How many are left? Difficult for me to understand as not my favourite car when they were available. It is as if everything known about a car is forgotten once it is over 20 years old and the rose coloured specs come out. Although may be I am just too much of a realist as in the 70's people used too wax lyrical over Vauxhall's Firenza an orange one and the Victor estate car. At the time, being a clued up teenager I was not impressed. But as this was in Luton the home at the time of Vauxhall it was expected with hind sight.



An Alfa Romeo Alfetta is more my type of car or Citroen CX I saw one when it first come out and was amazed. This is that as from that era the mid 70's my next door neighbour had a Brown Triumph 2000 my dad had the Ford Consul 2500L in grey both strange colours. I told my dad the colour was ok so I was to blame for the grey Consul in some ways. It had a radiator grill which caught a bird once it was full of maggots when I cleaned it out how long had it been wedged in the grill I wonder? Are there any other cars which the grill can be used as bird cacher?

From Wales, 19 posts

I’d agree that the X-type doesn’t have the Kudos of a ‘proper’ Jaguar, but it’s not a terrible car, (and I think a better shape than the new S-type). It’s ironic that it took a change of ownership to Ford before model & engineering quality improved. It’s not the sort of car that would appeal that much to the pony-set, they far prefer their 4-wd’s with the better ground clearance. Most X-type estates I’ve come across seem to be company cars, salesmen, etc. I think if it was my money & I was buying a new estate I’d probably plump for the Honda Accord, the VW Passat or Audi A6 – they’re all very nice estates, the engineering quality is better and they don’t depreciate so rapidly. I’m not a huge fan of Alfa Romeo just on their engines, the cars are beautiful and I really love their estate version but everyone I know who’s owned an Alfa has generally had to fork out for an engine rebuild by 100K miles. Obviously it is a car which you’re likely to want to red-line but you can’t help thinking that they’re making the big-end shells out unsuitable metal.



As far as the Triumph 2000 that you remember is concerned, I think that colour makes a tremendous difference. BMC/ BL did conjure up some abominable colours in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s – diarrhoea yellow, powder blue, pinks, bile green, etc. There were some boring colours as well, fawn, brown, pale yellow, etc. Seeing one of these Triumphs in brown with beige velour seats – it’s a totally different car to one in midnight blue with black leatherette interior. And, of course, the fact that most of the Triumph 2000’s / 2500’s were long since scrapped would mean that most people only remember the one that was in their street at 15yrs old that was covered in rust, belched out oily smoke and broke down a lot.



Both the 2000 and 2500 engines were very reliable and reached quite high mileages without needing rebuilds, they were also used in the sports cars, the 2500 being seen in the TR6 and GT6 in a slightly more tuned form. They’d have probably done well to stick with the 2500 for the Stag instead of the disastrous V8. The 2.5PI mk1 unfortunately developed a reputation for unreliability due to problems with the Lucas fuel injection system and many were converted to carburettors. If you think of the Triumph as being a reasonably heavy estate it did well in the mid-60’s to reach 0-60mph in under 10 seconds and reach 107mph. I did tour Eire in the early 1980’s in my uncles 2000 estate, it was at a time when travelling in the South West of Ireland was like stepping back in time about 50yrs and the roads were diabolical, the estate carried 3 adults and 3 kids with luggage for a fortnight with scarcely a hiccup, although the petrol we were buying over there was not good quality and caused the car to ‘pink’. We drove up some tracks which you’d only contemplate tackling today with a 4x4 and the old girl took it all in her stride, he later changed the Triumph for a Rover SD1 when they came out and regretted selling his 2000 for years afterwards.



There’s still quite a lot of Triumph 2000’s about as they sold in big numbers, (because they were a quality car), there are a few estates about, I’d guess I see one a month on ebay but they’re much more likely to be the mk2. The mk2 is a nice shape, dash is nice, but if I run a classic car I like to have one that qualifies for the tax-exemption which puts it at ’71 or earlier. The mk1 is definitely more dated in styling and its interior. As I say my ideal would be a mk1 2.5PI, I as this is the rarest estate, in a dark colour with a Webasto. People still pay decent money for them because they are a useable classic, they can be used every day and run on a budget, they don't depreciate if they're looked after and you can insure them cheaply on a classic policy.



I once had a Vandenplas Princess which was good at killing and retaining birds on a little ledge under the rad grille but I got my mate to clean it for me.



Have a look at these and see if you're not even swayed a little....

Triumph 2500TC estate - Mk 2

Triumph 2000 estate - Mk 1

17 posts

Hi, iI remember the 2.5pi well fom the very hot summer of 1976.



I was working just off the Edgware Road and we used to sit outside the "Windsor Castle" in Crawford Street, a road used by the police as a short cut back to the station.



At least twice a week, there

17 posts

Hi, iI remember the 2.5pi well fom the very hot summer of 1976.



I was working just off the Edgware Road and we used to sit outside the "Windsor Castle" in Crawford Street, a road used by the police as a short cut back to the station.



At least twice a week, there'd be a nice white police 2.5pi at the side of the road wih the bonnet up, waiting for a tow back the the station with a couple of sheepish plods trying to pretend it wasn't theirs after they had flattened the battery tring to restart when it had conked out. And these were possibly the BEST maintained 2.5pi's in the country!



We loved it.



They looked really nice too, as they all had genuine minilite wheels because the standard steels cracked under police use.

From Wales, 19 posts

I wasn't aware of the problem with the wheels, it was a huge shame that Triumphs 1st venture into fuel injection was abortive and unfairly tarnished the reputation of what was a pretty decent car. '76 in a Triumph PI, what would Mad Frankie Fraser & the rest of the colourful characters been using to outrun them then? Probably still Mk 2 3.8L Jags, XJ12's & Rover 3.5's - sadly the Triumph wouldn't have stood much of a chance!

17 posts

The rumour going round at the time was that these police Triumphs had the 150bhp version of the engine, like in the original TR5. If that was true, then they would have been pretty quick. They certainly sounded nice when they were actually going.

From Wales, 19 posts

I bet they did sound nice, these Police drivers are jammy when you look at what they get to drive, not quite as jammy as their Italian counterparts who get the occasional Ferrari supplied as a pursuit vehicle.



I've seen quite a few Triumph Spitfires that have had the 2.5 engine shoehorned into them - don't know how well they'd handle the power though?



Did you mention on a previous post that you had or once had an early E-type? I like the early flat floorpan models but only the convertibles, the fhc's are not my cup of tea. Unlike yourself I did also like the later V12 convertibles but not as much as the original - it certainly was an all time classic styling coup. A neighbour of my parents stumbled across a really rough one years ago & set about restoring it with his chequebook, sadly died before it was totally completed after a 20yr resto. He found by chassis number that it was number ?57? off the production line. His daughter got about 40K for it at auction after his death. A mate of my Dad has a 4.2fhc in really nice condition but you don't see many of the early 3.8's about.

17 posts

Hi, the one I had was a 3.8 FHC, the first revision 1962, not the flat floor one. That was back in the days when they had descended to "tatty 2nd hand". I couldn't really afford to run it properly because, to be honest, by seven years old those original "E" types were starting to fall apart and I offloaded it for about £550 before it disintegrated. Those early ones were then cheap because everyone wanted the 4.2s with the much better gearbox. I don't regret not having it, they are horribly complicated to restore properly.



Car I most regret selling was a Turner-Climax I had during my student days, Bought for £80 and eventually sold for £150 after putting in a lot of work . You could stick a couple of zeros on that value now as I don't know if a single genuine example still exists!



I do still have my much-loved Elan:



http://www.audiomods.co.uk/elan/

- restored now mainly out of guilt for all my past bodges

and at at my mother's house there's a 408 that we had during the oil crisis when, luckily, it turned into an unsaleable old shed overnight. That's probably a project for retirement.

From London Bridge, 37 posts

Those old Triumph's do look funny now and like death traps the pillers are so slim. I am not worried about a owning a car at the moment as in London it is quicker to walk. The last one I had was a Cavalier 2.0i for £200 a £2500 Triumph seems crazy to me.

17 posts

Hi, actually, i think they look rather good compared to a lot of their contemporaries, thoough i must admit I rather like their direct competitor, the Rover 2000, especially in the 3.5s version, a quick car even today.

Triumph always managed to turn out stylish cars, even when what was underneath wasn't so good!



Given a free choice, what would you really like to own?