There are levels of restoration jobs on a scale between 1 to 10, with 1 being it’s a completely rotten carcass of a car and needs thousands of hours and dollars to put right, to 10 which is nothing more than a paint touch-up and polish. I am comfortable with a high number – an easy restoration with doesn’t hurt my wallet and that I can commit time to comfortably. So most small British roadsters are a great project for me as parts are easily available and cheap and they are simple to work on if they don’t suffer from terminal rust. However, it can be useful to have a second ‘parts car’ to scavenge parts from, to build one car. So that is why today’s package deal of two Triumph TR6s would be an ideal project for me – you could easily make a solid car from these two, or you could be brave and restore both. This deal comes at us from Nashville, Tennessee, and is available on Craigslist here for $3,995 for both. Thanks to Chuck Foster for this tip!
Both cars are non-runners, with the red 1969 car in better shape than the other. This one is said to be complete but looks like it may have been sitting outside for a while. This car comes with the full title so would be the easiest to bring back to life. We have no idea about the engine or when it last ran through, and given the tires are flat and rotten, it may well have been a while. The hood is down, so I imagine the interior will need work too. Luckily the seller has plenty of other Triumphs in the background of the photos, so should know his way around these cars well if you wanted a more detailed description.
The green 1973 car, is in a much more sorry state. Rust has eaten away at the paintwork, there is a wing and a door missing but looks like they are inside the car, and the hardtop roof is not in place. You can clearly see the rust in the side panel which means this would probably be below a 5 on my scale of ease of restoration. However given that these are easy to work on, they could possibly come back to life with enough care, attention (and money).
Given the state of the two cars, these are worthy of a proper inspection, and chat with the owner first, to determine what your next steps would be. So how would you sort out this double-act of Triumph TR6s, would you restore both or restore the red one and use the green one as a parts car?
Both appear to be within a fairly easy restoration and both need to be preserved whole.
I own a ’70 – TR6 and have found all parts are obtainable but prices are creeping skyward. As well as the cars themselves becoming elevated in value. In some parts of the country (rust belt) one never sees a good one. I bought mine in southern CA in the late ’80s where many were sold new; if they originate from a dry climate rust can be somewhat avoided, but as in all things from England, the tin worm was included during factory build processes
Not a bad deal – either make one or two depending on ambition and whats what with the frame on either car. Nice win is the hardtop for the green one, maybe one of the two will be an overdrive car, then its starting to creep into bargain territory. If I were near I’d definately go check them out and see if I couldn’t get the TR250 in the background as part of a package. Nice to see a reasonable seller on projects like these.
Looks like a GT6 and a couple of MGAs out there too.
When I bought my very first car, a Morris Minor 1000, I went to the library and checked out a book called “How To Repair Your Foreign Car.”
It had an entire chapter dedicated to British cars. The title of the chapter was “If Britannia Rules The Seas, Why Can’t Her Cars Negotiate A Mud Puddle?”
I read that entire book, sold the Morris to a guy on the next block (who stopped talking to me about 6 months later), and bought a VW type 1
I have that book, hilarious!