The Triumph Dolomite Club - Discussion Forum

mine is VA684, and Mimosa

For those keeping lists NLJ 194M is VA122, non overdrive originally; last I heard laid up somewhere in N Midlands with blown head gasket but still surviving.

Oh, mimosa, yes.

Yes, we would like to see some pictures

Cheers,

marty dolomite wrote:VA203 is white.

One legend I have not heard for a while is the first 1000 had gold alloys

Are these part of the legend......
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/triumph-alloy ... 27c637fab5

steve

the gold ones i have seen had black inserts and didnt quite look that gold but it is about ten yrs since i last saw any

The alleged gold wheels were a late batch with dodgy lacquer which oxidised, yellowed and then shortly after delaminated from the wheel. That's why you don't see them anymore.

VA 1709, the Mimosa shell which I significantly failed to buy last Sunday is registered TAN xxxM so date of delivery must be on or after 1/8/73. Seems a bit late for a car that was probably built in March or thereabouts. I suppose it's possible that loads of people wanted something other than Mimosa and as a result some of the earliest cars went unsold for a bit. This theory would substantiate the legend of the first 2000 being Mimosa and account for different colour cars with later commission numbers having earlier dates of registration. Steve

Many ordered their cars early but deferred delivery until August to get the new M plate, bit of snob appeal I suppose.

My Mimosa L reg, VA369, was built on the 9th April 1973 and registered on 4th July 1973 to a Mr Baker in Crawley.

A couple of years ago I think it was Alun, Mike and I compiled a list of early Sprints, I'll have a dig to see if I can find it if it's of use to someone.

Hi Len, good to hear from you. How are you? I was only talking to Carl on Friday saying we'd not heard from you for a while and hoped things were progressing well for you!

Hi Alun,

I was alive when I woke up this morning so that has to be a good start!!!

I'm hoping to get to the South Hants meet on Sunday, not in a Dolly unfortunately but if its dry I'll try the TR6, otherwise diesel Kangoo.

Cheers,

Len

marty dolomite wrote:One legend I have not heard for a while is the first 1000 had gold alloys

Take a look at the third pic:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=30199

Perhaps I should have put up a picture of the spare from the car shown in the third picture. It is not gold as shown on the two wheels visible here. The gold colour you see has been painted on by the owner. It is not original.

The original clear lacquer finish did discolour very quickly in the strong sunlight here in New Zealand to give a golden hue but it was never as dark as portrayed here.

Robert

Robert 352 wrote:
The original clear lacquer finish did discolour very quickly in the strong sunlight
Robert

Agreed, the spare wheel that came with my Sprint is original and barely used (even down to the old Dunlop SP Aquajet tyre).
The (original) lacquer has faded to gold.

Before anyone jumps on me about tyre safety, I hasten to add that is has subsequently been kept in the shed for many years!

I thought it was only the first 1500 that were the homologation batch and all the same.

Happy to go with 2000 if that's in the factory docs, but ISTR 1500 was the number we agreed on in previous forum discussions on
this subject.

Jonners

Jon Tilson wrote:I thought it was only the first 1500 that were the homologation batch and all the same.

Happy to go with 2000 if that's in the factory docs, but ISTR 1500 was the number we agreed on in previous forum discussions on this subject.

Jonners

Mike Barker's 'How do we spot an "Early One"?' post - viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21814 - shows the press release, from the PR Dept., stating ""To acknowledge the Dolomite Sprint's performance the Triumph sports car colour range will be used, with the first 2,000 cars finished in Mimosa with black trim."

However, I've a suspicion that slightly more than the first 2000 cars made were Mimosa, as there don't seem to be any other colour cars below about VA 2200, and then, as I've been told, there's a batch of Magenta cars. VA 2065 was definitely made as Mimosa with black trim according to the BMIHT records. The raw data I have shows another yellow one just below VA 2100.

I don't know where in the production run Mimosa occurs again, the raw data has a couple in the 4000s and another couple in the 6000s, but no others after 2100. But wasn't there a thread here a while ago about a yellow one in the low 3000s?

From a production perspective, a continuous run of 2100 or 2200 cars would make sense if they'd promised PR 2000 yellow ones - they'd have had to make a few more to allow for the failure rate. I don't know what it was then, but I know the Rover 800 production failure rate was nowhere near zero.

So my money would be on 2100 to 2200 Mimosa and black cars before any other colour.

As for the later Mimosa cars, pre 76, the raw data has details for only about 0.2 percent of all the rest of the cars, after the first 2000/2200, up to 76. So there being data on 4 Mimosa ones, might suggest perhaps as many as another 2000 in the whole UK production run. It's an awfully small sample to infer that kind of detail from, but it does suggest there were quite a few.

Graham