Vehicles of Malcolm Archbald SMITH
[Ref. S.1]
Index
Triumph 2000
Registration number RHV 383
Vehicles of Malcolm Archbald SMITH
[Ref. S.1]
Triumph 2000
Registration number RHV 383
The car had an automatic gearbox and, although Malcolm preferred a manual change, he soon got used to it. One day whilst on holiday in Cornwall, the family were returning back to their holiday cottage, they got stuck in a traffic jam and the engine was starting to overheat. As they were on a downhill slope, Malcolm decided to take the car out of gear and turn the engine off to let it cool. As the traffic moved forward, Malcolm let the handbrake off to let the car coast but forgot that the brakes were power-assisted and was lucky not to run into the back of the car in front.
In time, the car gradually lost it's pulling power to the point that it was no longer safe. However, Malcolm still managed to sell it as a working vehicle to a bunch of university students who just wanted a cheap car to get back to college in the Midlands. If they completed the journey he never found out.
Whilst Malcolm worked for Lesser Building Systems, they had provided him with a company car. When he left in 1980 he was without a car during his retraining but, on gaining a place with McCarthy and Stone in New Milton, in order to get to work he bought a Triumph 2000 like those in the pictures above. He would share the drive with a colleague taking it in turns a week at a time.
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