The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

Found this the other day, thought you might like to see.

Interesting to see the line was shared with the 2.5 range.

No wonder we struggle to get doors to fit!

I wonder what the blokes who fit the vinyl roofs did whilst the line moved past them with a car that didn't need one?

probably only fitted the one side and sent it out as a 1550 one !!
also saw dollys run on the same line as the sdi and whilst i was there the ones they were running at the time were russet brown ....

SD1's were all made at Solihull....

No wonder 2600 mk1's are all dead then...

The Triumph boys wouldnt paint them properly on principal...

Jonners

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Note from Admin: sadly Jon passed away in February 2018 but his humour and wealth of knowledge will be fondly remembered by all. RIP Jonners.

Wrong way round there Alun. Vinyl was fitted to all cars when the fitter:

wasn't on tea break.
wasn't reading the paper.
wasn't on strike.
wasn't chattin up Doris in the 'pool.
wasn't crimping off a length (who hasn't enjoyed getting paid for that one?)
wasn't on strike.
wasn't attending union meeting to discuss striking (Brothers! The colour of the walls in the gents kasi is 0.002% outside the specification agreed with management.....)
wasn't discussing the footie with his mate on the next line.
had supplies.
had the motivation.

Thus less than 10% of dollies and barges with vinyl roofs.

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1978 Pageant Sprint - the rustomite, 1972 Spitfire IV - sprintfire project, 1968 Valencia GT6 II - little Blue, 1980 Vermillion 1500HL - resting. 1974 Sienna 1500TC, Mrs Weevils big brown.

they wern't on strike at the time i was there though it was a job to see any real work going on
there were little shelter things all over the place good for hiding in ?

you could well be right went on quite a few factory courses at various places stayed at the godiva hotel ? perhaps lewis would know where it is or was ? and had a russet brown 1500hl
pretty sure i was at coventry at the sd1 course and they were running sd1's on the line then if that hotel is in coventry it will confirm it this was close to the launch of the sd and was the first course they had run

So they were either dossing or not working. And we wonder why the Japanese have taken over?

SD1 production run..'76-spring'82,Solihull (series 1).Spring'82-'86,Cowley (series 2).

then if they didn't produce any in coventry what was it i saw on the production line ? looked very much like sd1's to me but i was only a few feet from them so might have been mistaken these as i said were on the same line as dolomites ... iirc something to do with demand for them ?
but the fields around the factory were full of them


just found the hotel it's now the swalow hotel and it's a short walk to the centre of coventry iirc there was a chinese restaurant there which you had to get to by elevator from the pavement .it was as i said the godiva and we were picked up from the hotel for a 5min run into the factory

No idea what you saw George. SD1 was soley produced in Solihull. Solihull did do a limited run of TR7/8 into the early eighties but they never produced the Dolomite range which was the last ever car to be produced at Canley.

Could you have seen a few of the "Project Broadside" car:



Though it would have been unlikely that the very small batch that were produced for evaluation (based on the TR7) would have ever found their way onto the shop floor.

I'm beat as to what you did see.

nop i know what was on the line at that plant maybe a bit senile 30yrs on but they were definatley production cars not any projects you will have to delve a tad further to verify it but i'm not saying the main production run was elsewhere but they most certainly produced them maybe not in great quantites but they were there i'll go up into my attic and see if iv'e any literature left from there but this was prior to the 2.3/2.6 and that engine was stacked up in the corner of the plant ready for production i guess..... what other reason would it be there for in cages
but there were projects around the various buildings and some in car parks iv'e never been to the solihul plant but my ex's uncle worked there in one of the lr depts that delt with problems etc... he took evr from there along with many of the older staff but thats another story

Rectification I reckon, prior to shipping.

fitting dashboards ,screens (rovers first bonded) , seats and carpet and on the coveyor system with no wheels etc...
think it was more than rectification bit more like assembly work
as i said it was to counter the demand for the 'new' rover might have been for a very short period



must be someone that can verify it i'm sure the guys at the plant would remember assuming they hadn't skived off somewhere

Unless...

It was pre-production work on the 2.3/2.6 engined variants, the engine would have been designed at Canley I suppose, and they were working out all the bugs before they sent it off for mass production?