tr7triumph.com

I live in a country area, with very few services, thank god. I do however live only 15 kilometres from Mount Tamborine, a very tourist attracting plateau area offering galleries, restaurants & many tourist attractions. It is definitely a no go area on weekends & holidays, but quite pleasant on week days.

The roads leading up the mountain can be great driving when not jammed with traffic. I occasionally reward my hard work with a drive up there. First a 19 Kilometre run along a broad rural valley to the south, followed by a 15 Kilometre very twisty climb up the mountain from the south west.

This road is known as the goat track. Much of it was carved out of the side of cliff over 100 years ago by dairy farmers wanting to get their cream to a butter factory by pack horse. It has very steep genuine 20Km/H hair pins in a number of places.

A nice 15Km cruise along the top of the plateau brings me to a favourite shop, the specialist fudge shop. I always stop & buy some fudge, [for the grand kids of course] & a coffee, then then another 16 kilometre twisty descent down the north western access road. The rum & Raisin is the best of dozens of flavours.

So why tell you all this, well I had recently taken the Honda S2000, & parked in their little 3 car park area, then just a couple of weeks later the 7. The shop has wide bifold doors facing this car park. On this occasion the 50s+ lady was serving a customer in the side of the shop, & could not see out, until she came to the centre to serve me. She stopped dead & said nothing but WOW!!.

She obviously recognised me then & said, "that is much nicer than the other one", meaning the S2000. I am sure she has no idea what either car is, but she knew which was prettiest.

Even if I didn't like their fudge, I would go back to that shop regularly.

Hasbeen

I don't think I've taken my car out this year when I haven't had comments about the car in the parking lot whether I'm driving it or my neighbor is. When she first drove it to a Walmart lot, while I popped in to pick something up, an older lady left her car to ask Catherine about the car (of course she didn't know anything about the car other than she liked driving it). Driving into my old golf course parking lot to get a beer and fish and chips, she got a "nice ride" comment. She has a 1985 Vanagon that she uses to go camping with her kids while they are young enough not to be "too cool" to go camping with Mom, as her "collector car". Just yesterday, parked at Canadian Tire, I came out with a guy staring at it. I said "yes, it needs a wash" (it did), he said he owned one of the early hard tops back in the day and wished he still had it (or could buy another). He said "they could sure hold the line". I showed a picture of it to a group of guys at one of her parties (they were younger and knew nothing about the car), one said "Wow, that's something James Bond would drive". I told them Catherine loves to drive it and they said I had a built in buyer when I decide to sell it.

Had to do a little shopping today. We have a new shopping centre about 20 Kilometres away, which so far always have nice wide disabled parking bays available, so took the 7.

A couple of people spoke to me as I got out of the car, both offering admiration for the old girl. One saw me struggling to get out of the thing, [coupe], & wondered why I would chose such a car. They accepted that it was worth 40 seconds struggle to have 20 minutes of real joy.

After shopping, as I was putting my few things into the boot, another bloke stopped & was admiring her. He said he was half way through restoring a Holden, & wanted to know who had done my paint job. Must drive the car more often, so both I & the public can enjoy the car.

Hasbeen

Took the 7 up to the sane shopping centre yesterday. Did my little shopping & came out to a pleasant surprise. Standing beside the 7 was an old mate I hadn't seen in 5 or 6 years, since he sold the local service station & retired.

He said "I knew who it must be when I saw the car, haven't seen another 7 in years". We had a great chat, & arranged dinner next week end.

If I hadn't been driving the 7 we wouldn't have met up, who could recognise the average car?

Given that the average car these day is a boring Japanese/Korean/ Chinese, black/grey/white SUV contraption even if I did recognise it as belonging to someone I knew, I’d avoid them like the plague and high tail it outta there, less I meet the boring bastard that would own such a shitbox.
However if I recognised a real car, I’d probably stick around to catch up like your mate did.