The Little World

Just park her down the back of the shop and leave the keys in the ignition.

And so the Triumph Herald arrives at Ess Bend Engineering. Stranded with a Lucas electrical system and a Coventry carburettor, she will eventually be reworked to Canadian standards. Many of her sisters will suffer the same fate in the UK and Australasia. The lucky ones will go to a place that doesn’t have salt on the roads in winter.

She will be draughty, noisy, rattly, and prone to break free on laterite roads or ice. The rubber seals won’t. The seats will crack and the floorpans will too. It will be a lucky owner who does not need a new wiring harness.

But she will be sporty and peculiar and the pride of whoever owns her. She will eventually disintegrate into a series of parts sold off to other owners and become an album of old photographs.