Eric Hoover's Story
While living in New Jersey in the 1990’s I owned a couple of TR3A’s and had work done by Nick Hanges who was thought of as “Mr. Triumph” of the NY city area. Nick had a customer from London who was working in Manhattan for a couple of years and he brought his TR5 to the USA with him. I would see the car at Nick’s shop and was intrigued by it enough to start a quest to acquire one. That quest lasted about 10 years and resulted in the purchase of CP/324-LO. According to the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust Certified Copy of a Factory Record CP/324-LO date of build was December 15,1967 with a date of dispatch of December 20, 1967. The destination dealer was “Blanc and Parche S.A.” Switzerland. The car was then registered in various cities within Germany. It was imported into the USA by Bruce Weiner of Madison, GA. (Mr. Weiner is well- known by the collector car world as an executive of “Double Bubble” who once had the world’s largest micro-car museum.)
January 22, Eric Hoover out for a winter drive near Santa Fe.
Mr. Weiner consigned the car to “Lamborghini of Atlanta” to sell it for him as he owns Lamborghinis within his car collection and I found the car online. I flew to Atlanta to inspect the car and purchased it in January 2008. The car had been subjected to a poor “frame off” restoration with a color change to BRG in Germany prior to importation to the USA. With the help of a British car mechanic I knew in Brevard, North Carolina I had the P.I. system sent to "Prestige Injections" in the UK to be re-built and he did some other mechanical work.
The car that created my interest in TR5’s at my friend's shop in Saddle Brook, NJ
Upon the car’s arrival in New Mexico, it was determined the engine should be overhauled due to low oil pressure. After doing that and some other mechanical refurbishing I determined that I was so “upside down” in the car that I would never sell it and I may as well go “all in “and have it cosmetically restored as well. A frame-off restoration with a change back to its correct color of Royal Blue was done by Vintage Autocraft owner Tim Marinos, a master craftsman who had been the head of the body and paint division of Paul Russell & Company in Mass. and who has done body/paint work for several cars in the Ralph Lauren collection. Tim also retrofitted a “surrey top” that I located online shortly after buying the car.
What the car looked like when it arrived in New Mexico
CP/324-LO has been shown at numerous events to include the La Jolla (CA) Concours, the Concours of Texas, The Colorado English Motoring Conclave, two national VTR conventions and “Triumphest”. The car is not a “trailer queen”. It has been driven regularly in New Mexico for pleasure and in quite a few long-distance tours such as “The Copperstate 1000” , the “Governor’s Cup Rally” in Arizona and the “Going to the Sun Rally” in Montana.
CP/324-LO will be featured in a spring 2021 release of “Bad Ass”, a new book by the automotive historian John Nikas and the automotive photographer Michael Furman.
My grandfather moved from Repton in Derbyshire to central Pennsylvania when he was sixteen years old. He was my role model as a youth and my appreciation for all things British was due to his influence. Subsequently, I have been told I have “British Car Disease.” Our garage in Santa Fe, NM currently houses a 1962 Austin-Healey 3000 MKII BN7 (Triple carb Roadster), a right-hand drive 1973 Lotus Elan Plus 2 S130, the TR5 and a 2017 Jaguar F-Type Convertible. A very pleasant malady indeed!
At Mesa Verde National park in Colorado touring with a friend in his Triumph Italia