The story so far

Welcome folks to my little blog about my never ending Triumph TR7 restoration. The aim here is to get us up to speed on the restoration, so that I can show you where I am up to right now. However, there is a bit of history to explain.

Back in 1994, I bought a Triumph TR7, restored it (well, tarted it up), drove it to Corfu, and brought it back.

The TR7 being driven home after purchase, on back roads, as I don't think it was road legal at the time.

This is what was towed back.

Work begins.

Fitting a new cover sill.

Neil removes the old paint.

Dust coat...

...and out she pops (full of filler!)

  

Looking proud!

This may have been us leaving for Greece. I wish I'd left the double denim at home.

France, I think.

RJW307R in Italy

By the time it returned to UK shores 6 months later it was very battered and so put into my garage, after which I periodically did the odd job to it in a token effort at a full restoration.What I actually did was strip all of the paint off it, whereupon it went rusty, then leave it in various garages for a long time. Needless to say it ended up a bit of a mess.

TR7 pulled out of years of storage

Looking at my records (and they are patchy) in 2005 the car "came home" and was put into a new garage at my house, where it then languished for another few years.

Over the next few years I collected body panels, to the extent that I had nearly a whole TR7 in spare parts, with a view to one day doing that proper restoration job the car deserved.

In the meantime, I became a sort of armchair anorak when it came to TR7s. I became a staunch supporter of these cars, particularly the fixed-head coupes which are so rare now. Yes, I can tell the originality of a car just by looking at its interior door handles; its age by scrutinising its badges. I know a dog from a swan and will bore you rigid about the history of the car. But I do it in good humour and laugh about the knowledge I have amassed.

Most importantly, though, this knowledge helped me to decide that MY rubbish Speke-built car would (eventually) end up as one of the best on the road. My approach is simple - given the paucity of early fixed-head TR7 coupes now on the road, I want mine to be restored to absolutely original specification, without a single modification. And that includes interior door handles, badges and standards of welding. Ok, maybe not the last bit.

RJW307R returns home

So, dear followers, what comes next are various retrospective posts to show you what has been done, including my own learning curve, and the current state of play.

There - that's a potted history of how we got to this blog - it is all about my current restoration of RJW 307R, a Speke-built fixed head TR7. It is still a very slow burn.
I do hope you enjoy it.

John