DHC report nr. 105 and last; She’s ready!

I have to draw the line somewhere! So today I finished the restoration of the DHC. The last thing I did was a final polish of the paint work. From now on all the remaining items are “service” related, and she will be used as she was meant to. So to end the series of DHC reports I did a little photo shoot this evening. No compact camera this time, but a proper  DSLR and a decent tripod.

Looking back over the past 18 months a few things spring to mind. Almost as soon as I started  my initial plan (upgrading the body and interior only) was abandoned. This was caused by the fact that I had more time to spend because paint preparations and painting started later and took much longer than planned. As a result of which I started coating and upgrading parts to keep busy, with known result!

Then there was this very long and very cold winter, which didn’t help progress on the project. As the shed, where the car was being assembled, isn’t heated I lost quite a lot of time because certain jobs (like fitting the wiring looms) took much longer, while other important jobs (fitting carpets) had to be postponed.

Another plan that had to be abandoned was the use of the 15” Revolution alloys. To accommodate them in preparation for the 2007 edition of Club Triumph’s 10CR, I had adapted the right hand rear arch, but I forgot to till the guy who did the body repairs. So he straightened the seam very expertly. As I only noticed this when the car returned from the paint shop, there was not much to do other then find an alternative. Which I found in the shape of the original 13” wheels. But as I couldn’t decide what to use, I refurbished two sets of wheels:

A set of banded original steels with street legal Yokohama racing tyres

for a blast through the country

And a set of original alloys with more or less original spec

Continental tyres for long distance touring and shows

The choice for the car’s colour also saw a few different options. When I removed the leather seats from ‘t Kreng in 1998, I put them in the attic with the idea to use them in the DHC somewhere in the not to near future. And of course the car would be painted Sapphire blue, as it looked quite lovely on 't Kreng. But by the time I had to decide on the colour, I had seen a few DHC’s in Cavalry Blue (which is almost the same shade as Sapphire Blue), and I found it didn’t look quite right on a DHC, they really need a bright colour.

I have actually been thinking of a bright green TR7 for almost as long as I have owned a TR7, but I wanted an original period Leyland colour. So when I stumbled upon an old post on the CT forum, by the late Ally Hickman, the choice for Triton Green wasn’t that difficult. And bright green goes well with the blue piping on some of the interior trim!

And finally, the project is dedicated to the memory of a friend’s wife, who died of cancer on the day I started on this restoration

Edited 2020-07-17: To mark that it is exactly 10 years ago that I carried out this photo shoot I re-processed the original photo files, using the latest version of Adobe’s Photoshop. Also added a few extra pictures that came  out much better after re-processing.