This is all very interesting! I love the history of these classic cars!
They also had a different heated rear window switch, the pull/push arrangement that melts because the bulb gets too hot, mine is bent at the moment. I am looking to replace the switch and put an LED in it so that it does not suffer from this.
I agree about the dials and those horrible "bin lid" hubcaps, the metal ones look so much better.
Commission Number
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Jon Tilson
- Guest contributor
- Posts: 11179
- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Middlesex
Re: Commission Number
Thanks for clearing the numbers up on those changes Ian....
I clearly wasnt wearing the right anorak...
Just as an FY! I owned 192** and that was built on Dec 27 1972, Back in the day a mate had one of the first SU'ed cars that was on an M, and at that stage the dolly was still very popular. I remember going to auctions and seeing year old cars makeing not far behind list price. I think that the overal collapse in the economy after the miners strike, EU membership and the end of the Heath government had more to do with the drop in sales than the arrival of the Sprint. Seen in the context of the decline in car sales across the board at the time after the "Barber boom", the dollie did pretty well. Like the rest of the Triumph range it pretty much soldiered on with very little development until 1980. I always thought its early image was devalued by the range rationalisation that saw Toledos given long tails and 1500TC's sold as pseudo dolomites and that cant have helped 1850 sales much either. Its a shame that Triumph got so sidelined with the Rover and BMC dominated BL board of the time. I guess after Michelloti's death Bache had a free hand bieng an ex Rover man and it was no supriise the SD1 was more Rover than Triumph. Its a shame that the SD1 though looking good was actually inferior in engineering terms to both the P6 and Innsbruck. Then Harris Mann totally screwed up the TR7 unitil the roof came off and even then it was a pretty ugly duckling.
It could and should all have bee so different....but even in 1980 the dolomite was pretty class competitive against maybe all but the 3 series, which was a lot dearer and the Ascona based Cavalier, which had such a crap interior even though it drove very well. It was still superior to any Ford product and the VAG competiton was the Audi 80/Passat neither of which did much for me to drive, altough quite pretty cars. but the Mk1 Golf GTi was waitng in the wings....such a shame BL wasted all their time on the Morona and Allagro and Princess.
Jonners
I clearly wasnt wearing the right anorak...
Just as an FY! I owned 192** and that was built on Dec 27 1972, Back in the day a mate had one of the first SU'ed cars that was on an M, and at that stage the dolly was still very popular. I remember going to auctions and seeing year old cars makeing not far behind list price. I think that the overal collapse in the economy after the miners strike, EU membership and the end of the Heath government had more to do with the drop in sales than the arrival of the Sprint. Seen in the context of the decline in car sales across the board at the time after the "Barber boom", the dollie did pretty well. Like the rest of the Triumph range it pretty much soldiered on with very little development until 1980. I always thought its early image was devalued by the range rationalisation that saw Toledos given long tails and 1500TC's sold as pseudo dolomites and that cant have helped 1850 sales much either. Its a shame that Triumph got so sidelined with the Rover and BMC dominated BL board of the time. I guess after Michelloti's death Bache had a free hand bieng an ex Rover man and it was no supriise the SD1 was more Rover than Triumph. Its a shame that the SD1 though looking good was actually inferior in engineering terms to both the P6 and Innsbruck. Then Harris Mann totally screwed up the TR7 unitil the roof came off and even then it was a pretty ugly duckling.
It could and should all have bee so different....but even in 1980 the dolomite was pretty class competitive against maybe all but the 3 series, which was a lot dearer and the Ascona based Cavalier, which had such a crap interior even though it drove very well. It was still superior to any Ford product and the VAG competiton was the Audi 80/Passat neither of which did much for me to drive, altough quite pretty cars. but the Mk1 Golf GTi was waitng in the wings....such a shame BL wasted all their time on the Morona and Allagro and Princess.
Jonners
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.
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peregrinenicholas
Re: Commission Number
Hiya
My 1850 MOT certificate states first approx date of use is 01/07/1971! Can this be correct?
Peregrine
My 1850 MOT certificate states first approx date of use is 01/07/1971! Can this be correct?
Peregrine