The Other Triumph
So how did I wind up with a second Triumph? Well, shortly after buying my TR4A and starting the restoration my wife and I were talking and got onto the subject of dream cars. I now had mine, and after some coaxing I got her to finally admit she had always wanted a Mercedes 450SL. I said that was fine, whatever car she wanted I would try to get for her. The going price for a 450SL made the search a long, slow one, with everything in our possible price range not really worth what they wanted and my wife becoming more and more disappointed in the size of the car and lack of a back seat. She decided that the 450 wasn't what she wanted, but she didn't know what she did want.
One night I was looking through a Triumph World magazine I had picked up for a TR4A article it had, and she was looking over my shoulder as I flipped pages. Suddenly she said "Wait! Turn back a page" I flipped back to reveal the picture she had seen. "Oohhh, that's pretty! What is it?"
"It's called a Stag, darling"
"I've never seen one of those"
"That's because they're pretty rare here in the US"
I then proceeded to tell her about the history of the Stag, it's high points and it's flaws. All the time I talked, she flipped through the Stag article looking at the different pictures. She really liked that it had a back seat and thought the t-bar really set the car off. After I finished talking, she looked at me and said "This is the car I want, but I don't want an engine that I have to be afraid of breaking down all the time" I replied that there were some that had been converted to have other engines in them, and she asked if I could find one of those.
Well, I searched and searched, want ads and Internet, looking for what she wanted. Several times I would find one that sounded promising, only for it to turn out to be a rustbucket or the deal to fall through for some reason. Finally, this year just in time for our anniversary I found one that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I packed the family up and drove 600 miles to go look at the car, and it was everything the owner had said it was. We made the deal, and I promptly drove the Stag the 600 miles back home.
So, now my wife is the now the very proud owner of a 1973 Mallard Blue Triumph Stag! It has a GM 4.3L V-6, automatic, power steering, power brakes, power windows, air conditioning, alloy wheels and both tops. Below are some pictures of her car
And here are some pictures of the car since we brought it home:
