Keith’s Blog: A Triumphant Event

Madras, Oregon (pop. 7,456), is 121 miles from SCM headquarters in Portland. The route there on Highway 26 is delightful, taking you from the lush green of the Willamette Valley up and over Mt. Hood to the Oregon High Desert.

The Triumph Register of America National Meet took place there from June 15–19. This marked a major milestone, as it was the first time the TRA held its annual event west of the Rocky Mountains. There were over 150 vintage Triumphs on display.

I gave a talk on the evolution of sports cars in the post-World War II era. I remarked that we should appreciate how lucky we have been to have lived through this time of rapid change, both from a styling and engineering standpoint.

In the regulation-free era from 1945 to 1967, sports cars evolved, from skinny-tired, cycle-fendered MG TCs with four-cylinder engines under one-liter in displacement to sophisticated, powerful, good handling cars before emissions and safety regulations were phased in starting in 1968. For a enthusiast, it was bountiful period almost tribal in nature. There were three primary entry-level sports car languages being spoken. They were the dialects of the MG, the Triumph and the Austin-Healey. The cars of each of these affordable marques represented the very best the engineers and stylists could create using the technology of the time and the budgets they had to work with.

Walking up and down the rows of the cars on display at the concours, held at the Madras Municipal Airport, each iteration of the Triumph brought back its own memories.

I always wondered if the iconic cut-down door shape of the TR2/3s allowed a driver to drag his left elbow on the concrete when cornering in spirited fashion. The TR4/5/6 were thoroughly modern cars, with wind-up windows, wipers that wiped and heaters that heated. (We’ll just agree to skip over the regulation-encumbered TR7/8 and “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” Stag.)

In this modern era, where we can scroll through hundreds of photos of car meets, held all over the world, there is something refreshing about actually being in the presence of over 100 classic sports cars, all nearly 70 years old or more. Further, a national meet is usually a showcase for properly restored cars of a very high quality, a visual treat.

I was speaking with the event organizer, Reid Trummel, and he mentioned that most Triumphs that survive today have been restored at least once, if not two or three times. The era of finding a scruffy, un-restored original car is long gone. As these sports cars have become more valuable, restorations have gone from a sloppy repaint to “down-to-bare metal” resurrections. The case could be made that most every Triumph at the concours was, in fact, done to a higher standard that when it left the factory.

This is the time of year for car shows, and you owe it to yourself to go to as many as possible, enjoying the physical presence of these artifacts from an era now gone.

Do you have a special car show you look forward to going to each year?

I look forward to learning what it is in the comments below. 

Read my previous blog posts here.

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