January 2005

Small Island Living With a TR-7

By Jeffrey Aronson (Urchin)

It's been said that the first things victors do is rename something; swap out a commonly used name for a new one, preferably in a new language. When the TR-7 emerged on the marketplace in 1975, British Leyland marketing types decided to do the opposite. They didn't give it a new moniker but continued the TR legacy. In the process, they annoyed everyone. Traditionalists saw it as a calamity, for it had little in common with previous Triumphs. Those who watched the wave of Japanese and German sports cars knock the British auto industry into a cocked hat wondered why anyone would choose to associate the modern 7 with cars that offered only archaic qualities. While quality control on the first FHC 7's was below pound shop, the Canley and Solihull cars - particularly the convertibles - demonstrated that the British could build extraordinary sports cars at reasonable prices. Of course, advertising offered us new names and phrases: wedges, "the shape of things to come," but in the end, the old name stuck.

That's a shame for it was a TR in name only. An OHC engine of a modern design, coil springs all around, a monocoque body, an interior fit for a long trip, a fifth gear overdrive that wasn't an optional extra, visibility all around the car - these were revolutionary ideas. Imagine a sports car that doesn't let you know the weather conditions outside by allowing the weather inside the car.

Although I never owned them when new, I did own a 1963 and a 1978 Spitfire and MGB. Neither could be driven in a heavy rainstorm without a roll of paper towels handy - and all four cars had new, professionally installed tops. My '80 TR-7 Spider has a roll of shop towels in the trunk, but they're for my greasy hands, not my wet bottom.

Imagine heat, not from the engine in the summer, but from a heater core in the winter. Imagine a blower motor that does not imitate an elderly mouse with emphysema, but can blow as much hot air as a politician close to election day. That's my TR-7's heater and blower. Imagine a defroster (demister) that clears a windshield (windscreen) before you arrive at your destination. Imagine using a scraper only on the outside of the window, not the inside! That's my TR-7. Imagine acceleration and reasonable gas mileage without weekly carb adjustments. That's my TR-7.

My TR-7 has two lives. In one, it lives most of the week in Somerville, a tiny town of 530 people about 25 miles from the coast of Maine. It's a poor, rural town with predominantly dirt roads. As a school headmaster on the public payroll, the 7 attracts a lot of public attention. Not long after I bought it in 2003, a school committee member stared at it and declared "we must be paying you too much money." Sadly, that's not the case.

I offer the following evidence, your Honour. In the USA, the TR-7 is not a beloved sports car so sale values for cars that will pass our state inspections run between $3,000 - $7,000, the same as Spitfire prices. Mine cost $5,000. By way of comparison, running TR-3's, TR-4's, TR-250s' (our version of the TR-5) and TR-6's sell for between $7,000 - $20,000. Another way of viewing this is that the state of Maine charges an annual excise tax based on age and dealer sale price. Purchasers of new cars that cost $25,000 pay an annual tax of around $700; my TR-7 was taxed at $18.00 this past year. So much for exorbitant pay scales.

When I go home on weekends, I travel to an island town 15 miles, or 1 « hours by ferry, called Vinalhaven. Not, we're not the home of bad auto upholstery, but the results of a charter granted to one John Vinal back in the late 1700's. Vinalhaven is a working fishing island of 1,200 peolpe with a village center on its southeastern corner. It's 9 miles long and 4 miles wide at the most and has dozens of miles of unkempt dirt and paved roads. Every spring, the annual thaw buckles the paved road which in turn deteriorate further for the rest of the year. All roads are narrow and decrepit; most are filled with large pickup trucks overflowing with fishing gear or SUV's full of families.

For many years, I've owned the only sports car among the year-round residents [the island has two "summer jerks" who own a Fiat 2000 Spider and an Alfa Spider]. My other car, a '66 Land Rover, helps with the street cred, but it's the sports cars that draw everyone's attention. The TR-7 elicited a lot of "wows" when it arrived for its first visit last year. There's two reasons for this. One is that it's the first sports car I've owned without visible layers of grey duct tape. The second is that its shape flies in the face of contemporary auto design. A teen age girl "from away [meaning off island]" who has studied abroad saw it in June as asked "It's awesome. Is it Italian?" Nope, right out of Longbridge, I replied.

This is also an island where you leave the keys in the ignition anytime - after all, where are you going to take the car? Everyone knows everyone's cars anyway, so a different driver would be duly noted and reported. Summer kids once took my '78 Spitfire on a joy ride but it wound up at the town center, undamaged. And I knew about it instantly.

Driving on the island has its challenges. Our dirt roads, of which we have many, are narrow and slick but at least a road grader can smooth them out regularly. Our paved roads are, to be kind, appalling. Most of the island is granite and when the town paved its roads, it chose not to dig down very deep before paving. So our roads buckle up at odd places, routinely fall apart, and tax coil springs and dampers to the fullest. There are few stretches in which you can exceed 45 mph as they twist and wind their way around the perimeter of the island.

On the other hand, the vistas are extraordinary. Most roads hug the shore or travel through woods near the shoreline. Most of the houses date back at least 100 years and have the weathered look of wooden buildings that battle the winds and salt air daily. An "inland sea" called The Basin serves as a nature preserve where eagles soar or queue up on rocks searching out a meal. Occasionally, seals will bask in the warm sun.

The TR-7 handles the poor road conditions, narrow lanes and endless curves with aplomb. I rarely get to use 5th gear when on the island; I can be lucky to find a stretch for 4th gear. You get a fine physical workout without the power steering of the TR-8. While a hard bump at speed will bottom out the suspension against its stops, you're reminded that Spen King also built in suspension travel in his Range Rover, which is also why it's an extraordinary road vehicle. The 7 takes curves at far greater speeds than it should, given its relative size, and the only limitation seems to be how hard and how fast I'll crank over the steering wheel.

With the top down, there's no better place to be that inside the cockpit of a TR-7. My island town just adds to the pleasure of daily use. Still, I'm reminded constantly that it's a different automobile experience than the norm. Just last night, at a Selectmen's meeting [our local governance of New England towns], a local committee chairman had to remind the assembled that "those people who own fancy sports cars forget that it's those of us with ordinary cars and trucks who drive them around when their car needs a repair, or goes to get the parts for them." Guilty on all counts, but I know he's just jealous!