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The Sprinter

It's fairly rare to see one of these around these days, so when I spotted this Dolomite Sprint I had to shoot it, especially bearing in mind the fab colour!

 

Some years ago I very nearly bought one of these. The garage where I had my cars serviced had an immaculate one for sale. They had reconditioned it from tip to toe and I took it for a test drive. It was an absolute blast! These days a 2 litre 16 valve engine is normal but in a car dating from 1973 it was something pretty special. I remember fondly the thrill of flooring the accelerator and feeling a rush of raw power, without all the smoothing out you get with modern technology.

 

But, alas, the guys who owned the garage knew I wasn't someone who would want to spend each weekend underneath the car re-attaching bits that had fallen off. Apparently when Triumph fitted this monster engine into a car designed for far less powerful engines they created a car that was lots of fun but didn't quite manage to modify it properly, and as a result various components would break, come loose and so on.

 

And I'm someone who would rather just drive a car, not repair it and then drive it.

 

But I still always have a smile on my face when I see one of these handsome cars still motoring around.

 

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Uploaded on May 18, 2007
Taken on May 18, 2007