Triumfest 2015
Last year was the first time the TSSC showcase, their annual event had been moved from its traditional same-old-same-old venue at Stafford County Showground to Donington Park. Last year was a great event, great new venue and a great new era. I had a Triumph at the show, we camped on the Saturday night, with the family and the weather was fantastic too.
I had been to Stafford for easily 20 years – but never taken a Triumph (long stories), never camped and would have never, ever have taken the whole family – as they have no interest in Triumphs.
So, the weekend saw the second outing at Donington. It didn’t get off to the greatest start as the planned travel up on Friday evening avec the Herald frustratingly ended with hydraulic fluid from the rear brakes leaking all over the A5 enroute resulting in no brakes all round. A U turn, limped home and the realisation the Herald wouldn’t be coming out to play for the duration. There would be no camping Friday night either so the beer was cracked open at home, shucks.
Saturday morning dawned quite early with a mix of anticipation and a new optimisim. I grabbed a few things from the garage to fill the modern car boot with saleable items for an unplanned autojumble – x3 black tonneau covers, a couple of NOS 948cc solex carbs, some seat belts and an unused Rimmer Bros green carpet set, bought for my old green coupe, but never fitted – bunged a foldable chair in the ‘modern’ car and left everything else still in the Herald from the night before, giving a final expletive and kick of the tyre as I left the garage. I flew up the M1 in around 40 minutes as opposed the ‘country way’ planned for the Herald the day before which was going to take 1 hour and 40 mins.
Arriving at Donington, it was all familiar from the year before and waving my weekend camping armband I was offered a place to park on the grass – so instead I plumbed for the nearer parking I remembered from last year, where the drive-in movie was. Parked, eagerly I headed into the event, it was c9.00am.
Straight away it reminded me of Stafford, in that it didn’t matter when you arrived, either Saturday or Sunday, you always felt that there had been a big party the night before and the morning after was going to be a slow start. The huge expanse of tarmac had six or seven Triumphs dotted around, six or seven autojumblers/traders, of which 4 still had their overnight covers on, an area coned out for the autosolo on the far side and a number of boards indicating model parking; Spitfire, or Vitesse or Toledo etc. There were half a dozen people milling about. Completing the ‘course’ of autojumble in two minutes with nothing of note suitable, awaiting the final traders to remove covers, and again, nothing grabbing my attention, I was complete. A couple more early-bird cars had driven in taking the total to around nine or ten.
The planned Triumph road-trip adventure never happened and I thought the show would be a bit dull minus Triumph. I had prepaid for camping and two day tickets so this was an expensive day already.
I headed back to my modern car, sat in and thought what a waste of time. I could be back home for 10am and, with the great weather I could do something else – there were a couple of local shows on and I was sure the cake and beer tent would be very inviting. Then I remembered the ‘shiny’ cars in the hall last year, a half a mile or so up the road, so I headed there only to find it completely empty and locked. Surely now was the time to head home and moan about the show for days? Then I remembered the bits and pieces I had as my autojumble – and that one pair of seat belts I had actually saved for someone. The autojumble was free to do, I could meet him, see if he wanted them and then head home, simple.
This time – because I was now an autojumbler – I could drive in. I followed a couple of Spitfires as they were ushered in and the marshal, who stopped me, was looking surprised at a normal car. I said I was here to sell and I had already spotted my ‘pitch’ with easy access to drive away in a few minutes or so, once the seatbelt deal was done.
Parked, boot opened I thought I may as well place the tonneaus and carpet set out whilst I sort the seat belts out. Within a few minutes someone wanted to buy the belts I had set aside. I had to point out they were not for sale. Again a few moments later – “How much for the belts?” I pointed out these particular ones were not for sale but as I had others a sale was made. The autojumbler next to me congratulated me on my first sale and we got talking, then I sold a tonneau, the other tonneau and one of the carbs to Andrew Turner (who said he had never seen a NOS 948 carb, so I decided to ‘keep’ the other one) before the original planned seat belt deal was completed. In between I would chat to ‘customers’ they would say what car they had and in the case of the ‘other’ belts that they would be going in a TR4. It was great.
My ‘pitch’ placement – with only x1 Tonneau and green carpet set left was great to watch the Triumphs come in which, was now a good steady stream, the huge expanse of tarmac was filling up well. More customers were coming to my ‘stall,’ probably all wondering why the heck I had only two things to sell, but were chatting to me all the same.
I had watched my neighbours pitch for a few minutes whilst he went for a wander, so I thought I’d go and see what cars were around, bumping into familiar faces on the way my little wander was a good hour and a half. I got back to my pitch to find the tonneau had sold and so I was happy to pack up as I’d only seen three green Heralds drive in so I’d thought I’d go and see the condition of their current fitted carpet.
The cars on show were great – all sorts of condition which makes a good mix, I reckon. Inside there was a new feature of a driving simulator game which didn’t appeal to me and outside an ice-cream van that did. The entertainment for the kids – the Rapido Brothers looked really good fun – this was new for this year, they were well organised and was constantly busy. Fantastic.
By now it was early afternoon and the time had flown by, there was a burger van but there was a 10 minute wait for new burgers so I watched some of the guys hooning around the track and went back only to find the burger van had ran out of burger rolls – no problem I thought, with the burger and cheese cut in half in a hot-dog roll it was just as tasty and started a new trend in the queue behind me!
Another chance meet of a couple of guys looking over (or rather under) the earliest Herald there, seeing the differences between the MK2 and MK1 chassis – there were very used to MK2 chassis but the earlier one was so different to them – and new for their cars they had recently acquired – a 1959 948 Herald Saloon and a 1961 948 Herald Convertible with photos of the cars and, most importantly, commission numbers to prove their existence AND true identity. Brilliant stuff!
Heading over to find any suitably bad carpetted green Herald, some of the cars had been selected for ‘the final judging’ for the new show and shine. This was a new thing and judging would be at 4 O’Clock today instead of the old ‘at the death when everyone had either gone home or collapsed through exhaustion on the Sunday’. There were some particularly nice cars put forward and some had not even polished the inside of their exhaust pipes so I thought it would be interesting to see which cars won. It was 3pm now, so an hour or so to wait – in which time I chatted to more people including Simon from Triumph World.
4 O Clock came and a small crowd had gathered for the results with a genuine sense of anticipation from all the finalists, as there was no certainty who was going to win this year, because the normal cars weren’t there and we didn’f necessarily know what the judges were looking for. For instance, the Herald category saw the finalists with a traditional TSSC super glossy, shiny-everything convertible 13/60 up against the unrestored, original, low mileage Alpine Mauve 948 saloon and a splendid Coffee and White 948 Coupe. I’d have put money on the 13/60 being the winner, because of the bling, but the winner was the Coupe – and a very popular choice, so much so it was later awarded Runner Up – Car of the Show.’ Awesome!
Best Herald and Runner Up Car of the Show
More yakking, a fourth or fifth tour of the autojumble (still small but I did pick up a couple of bits) stopping to meet people that I recognised through Facebook or, in one case being introduced to a guy I didn’t know – yet again we are ‘friends’ on facebook – but his avatar is a pigeon so great to meet ‘in the flesh’, you do look so different in real life. That said, my avatar is the Prototype Herald African Run car and I like the air of mystery.
Finally with all the traders, pretty much zonked and starting to pack up for the day, I think I was one of the very last to leave after being one of the first to arrive earlier in the day. I jumped in my car and followed a GT6 on the back of an AA tow-truck as they were beginning their long trip home to somewhere – now there’s a good thought, I thought!
Clearly I was disappointed with my exploits to start with before the show had even started. I thought that not having a Triumph at Donington (which was so good last year because of it) would be a huge disadvantage – I could have easily left early and missed SO MUCH that happened later. Of course I wish my car had made it, I wish I had camped for the duration and enjoyed both days; but the show was great, it was really, really great. I got my money back for my un-used camping fee plus extra through my autojumble. A couple of comments have said about the (lack of) autojumble so why don’t we all take three items next year we are happy to sell on, simply plonked down on a free pitch, or by your car? You could probably pre-sell three items on Facebook the week before Donington and agree to meet up on site. Throughout the day (with the exception of a set of new hydraulic pipes) I was able to pick up everything I needed to fix my car – and with the stuff I sold, it was actually kind of for free (with still enough left over to buy the pipes online). My ‘Autojumble’ was simply a few things I had been falling over – I really don’t need 7 tonneau covers, so I sold some! – collected in 2 minutes. Imagine if I had brought just one of my crates of Stanparts?
Hats off to the Triumph Sports Six Club (TSSC) for the event. I am sure it is a nightmare to organise, and they’ll be wishing for next weekend to recover, but yet have a working week to get through first! The new format ‘show and shine’ was brilliant, things for the kids to do, all consolidated into the same area. Well done to all those involved. A brilliant event.
I never did see the owner of any green Herald, so the carpet set will go back in store for a while. It was the only thing that didn’t sell. The other NOS solex carb is not for sale (well, probably not).
