Neil Revington on RevingtonTR

History and the company

RevingtonTR started, as many businesses do, by growing out of a hobby.
 

Neil Revington has owned a TR2 - registered as TKR49 - since 1970 when as an apprentice in the aircraft industry he bought the car for £70 from a fellow apprentice whist living in the YMCA hostel the apprentice school used as student accommodation. It wasn't long before lack of driving talent, coupled with rubbish tyres and poorly maintained suspension resulted in a spin on ice, taking out all four corners whist proceeding through the fence onto Denham airfield. The YMCA hostel was just behind the airfield, but this was not an appropriate shortcut. The car was not too badly damaged but as the car was only 70 pounds worth and barely MOT'able the relatively minor accident ensured other bits fell off than should not have. The car was rebuilt over the following two years in one of the sheds at the hostel and painted in Neil's room-mate's uncles home workshop. The 'rebuild' using lots of Dexion shelving and Ministry of Defence filing cabinets - techniques which are thankfully now no longer employed at RevingtonTR- was completed at the YMCA hostel late in 1971 with limited tools and certainly no welding equipment.

TKR49 is still used by Neil as daily transport and in competition. It's seen to the right at the Wilaston Pursuit Sprint on the Isle of Man in 1998 and is used to this day for all manner of expeditions; for going to the pub, to endurance rallies across Europe. You name it, this car has done it. A conservative estimate is that Neil and Sue have covered over one million kilometres in the car to date (Neil revised this in 2020)

Neil was apprenticed to the Aeronautical Quality Assurance Directorate, a branch of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) responsible for the quality of design and manufacture of all military aircraft both fixed wing and helicopters. Neil was employed by this branch of the MoD until the TR business was started in 1981, initially being called TR Spares South West.
 

This background in the aircraft industry laid the groundwork for many of the modifications which RevingtonTR have developed for the TR range.
 

RevingtonTR are situated in the heart of the Somerset levels in the South West of England - eleven miles from Taunton and six miles from Bridgwater and the M5 motorway.
 

We occupy a three acre ex-farm site, where the farm buildings have been converted to stores and workshops. In 2002 the farm buildings forming part of the courtyard of Thorngrove House, across the road were purchased and these were then converted to accommodate the administration of the business and the parts counter along with additional storage space. This building today is the focus of the RevingtonTR parts activity with the workshops remaining at the rear of Home Farm.

Shared love, the TR5 joins the family

My TR2 was a happen-chance purchase but wanting to own a TR5 was a considerably more considered decision. As a founder member of the TR Register in 1970, I always though that it was odd that the club shunned the windy up window brigade as TR4-6 owners were known at the time. Sue and I owned two cars then, my TR2 and Sue had a TR4. We chose a TR4 as the spares compatibility with the TR2 made sense. The Michelotti design of the TR4 looked good from any angle to me and it was not a large leap to realize that if we were to own two TR’s, then the perfect complement to the TR2 would be a TR5.

Shared love, the TR5 joins the family

This goal was realized in the late 70’s when we purchased a blue ‘one owner’ car but before long that car was stolen, never to be seen again. Undeterred, I bought a white TR5 RYB187F with the insurance money and it had been with us ever since. RYB is a hard-top car and for a while we owned another white soft top TR5, both being used as mobile test beds for parts we sell to prove compatibility and reliability, as well as fitness for purpose. The blue TR5 which I use for race and rally activity as well as daily driving has proved that a well set up TR5 can be competitive in many spheres as well as a useful road car. I had competed in Targa Tasmania in 1998 with my powder blue ex works TR4 registered 6VC and done sufficiently well to dream about what would be required to win the classic category. A ’standard’ or at least standard to the rules, TR5 was the obvious answer. A plan was hatched to take 3 cars a following year, 6VC, its sister 3VC and the TR5 so it would therefor have to be powder blue. The 3-car trip never happened but by then I had a competition prepared TR5 in blue. We have always known this car as the Targa TR5 as it was clearly built to excel in that event, but recession, life and work got in the way and the car didn’t get to Tasmania until 2019. In the meantime I used the car in rallies all over Europe, with some success and took the car to Barbados to take part in the Carnival stage rally 3 times,  culminating in a class win and overall ‘king of the Carnival’ trophy in 2017. Two years previously we had taken the car to Malta to compete in the Mdina Grand Prix where the Trusty TR5 won two races. And what of Targa Tasmania? Well, the Targa TR5 did exactly what it was built to do, albeit 20 years late, wining its class, a Targa trophy for a clean sheet and winning its category. A fine car indeed. We are producing a film of the car on the 2019 event the release of which we will advise via our website and newsletter.

Sign up to Receive our Newsletter by clicking HEREIn the meantime, here is the TR5 in action in Malta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tShJNgTIPNw&t=397s  

As a result of our activities with TR5’s, it is inevitable that we have become something of a magnet for TR5 owners. We are able to offer a vast range of parts backed up with an unrivaled knowledge base. Our workshops rarely have less than 4 or 5 TR5 in at any one time and once we had 12 TR5 on site all at the same time.If you want to know something about TR5’s..ask Revington TR.    

Neil Revington - November 2020