1966 Triumph Herald Convertable with a 1340cc Engine and Overdrive

The Wife's 1966 Triumph Herald.

Replacing the 1200 Hard Top saloon we had.

I just couldn't do this web site and not include the wife’s old Triumph Herald,

even if I didn't build it.

It was such a nice car for the 355 days that we owned it.

"Yes", we counted the amount days that we had it.

"Why?" I hear you ask.

"Well I shall tell you."

It all started years ago when Paula said she would like to have a Herald, as she just loved the shape and look of a Herald. Every time we saw one, she would mention that she would like to have one. Years went by and we never did get one until one day one came along and we decided to buy it.

The one we brought first of all is not the one you see pictured above. It was a 1965 model with a 1200cc engine and Paula loved it. It plodded along for about a year or so taking Paula to and from work and the shops and back.

Then one day when Paula had just finished work, she went up to the service area of the Grosvenor shopping centre in Northampton to where she parked the Herald while at work. She got in the Herald, started it up and sat there and let it tick over for a while to warm the engine, as it always went better when warmed up first. While she was sitting there, she remembered that she had left a jar of coffee that she had brought for home, in her shop. So she switched the engine off and locked the car up and went back to her shop to get the jar of coffee.

On her return she could hear a car alarm going and suddenly realized that it was the Herald. As she quickened her pace the Grosvenor security stopped her and asked her to go to their office and wait there while they sort a problem out in the parking area. Paula was anxious to know what was going on as it was her alarm that was going off.

After a while they told her that someone had jumped off the multi-story car park and had landed smack bang on the Heralds bonnet. Just imagine, had she stayed in the car and not gone back to her shop, this bloke would have landed right in front of her.

Paula had by now rung me at home and I was on my way to see what damage had been done. We both had to wait a short while, while the security guards cleaned up most of the blood and we also had to wait while the police had a look.

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Here is Paula telling an old friend what had happend to her Herald.

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Mark Field having fun taking the piss out of the twat that wrecked our car...

Run your mouse over the photo to see one of him laying on the motor...

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When I did get to see the Herald, I found that it was wreaked. The bloke that jumped was over 30 stone and when he landed he managed to mould the bonnet around the engine. The impact was so hard it bent the front suspension, chassis, bonnet, wings, front grill and panel and also smashed the windscreen and bent the chassis frame. It also broke various bits off the engine and broke other bits that lived on the bulkhead panel.

I was gutted at seeing our lovely little Herald, written off buy the insurance company. Apparently my claiming documents went all round the insurance office, as no one really believed what had happened until the assessor got back to the office. The car was taken away and scrapped and that was the end of that nice little car. It wasn’t in a brilliant condition, but it was solid enough for the MOT and it ran lovely and was functional.

One slightly dented Herald

Paula was so upset about her little car getting written off, that I thought we must get another one. At the time I didn’t have the time to build one, so we started looking in the ad’s for one suitable enough for her to use and it wasn’t long before we found one.

It was miles away from Northampton and belonged to a policeman, living in Cheshire. I took a drive up to see it, fell in love with it, and just knew Paula would love it. I drove back and told Paula all about it and showed her some photos of it looking all cleaned up and looking spot on.

The policeman was going to put a full years MOT on it and said I could pick it up around midday on the day of the MOT. He was 100% sure it would pass, as he had already done any work it needed for the MOT. So a few days later I got a lift from my mate Mark Horne and went back to Cheshire to collect the Herald. It had a new engine that had not even been run in and a new paint job. It was a real sparkler and everywhere you drove it, people would turn their heads and look and wave.

The look on Paula’s face was a real picture when I got it home and drove it up the drive. You could see the biggest smile ever on her face, as she eyed the Herald up and down. It was gorgeous and shone like a new sixpence. The engine never missed a beat on the way back home and it run like a dream, boo-ti-ful it was just boo-ti-ful.

So, it’s back to the 355 days. We ran it until 10 days before its MOT was due and then some idiot with no insurance ran up the back end of it and shoved the back end in, good and proper. It was totally knackered and you could see that it was another write off. We were both absolutely gutted that we only had it 355 days and that was it, finished.

The insurance company paid up and as it was on an agreed value, I got the full amount that I had paid for it, back. So you could say that I had a years motoring out of it for free. But that didn’t make up for the sadness that set in with the Heralds. Two of them written off in two years were enough to give up on owning a Herald altogether. From then on we thought that we were jinxed with the Heralds and never bothered replacing it with another one.

Instead of a Herald, I built her a Mini.

More on that in a later page on this site.

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