Fast, Furious And Still In The Pink
The Age
Thursday February 17, 2000
Jeffrey Scorer has always loved a fast set of wheels. On his own admission, he was a leadfoot in his day, and not just on the racetrack. Presumably at age 83 he has slowed down a bit, but mention fast cars and he still gets that far-away look in his eyes.
With hardly any encouragement he'll talk all day about the old Albert Park racetrack, Fishermens Bend, racing at Ballarat - and his old adversaries Lex Davison in an Alfa Romeo and Reg Hunt in a Maserati - and the cars he has rebuilt, raced and sold.
But there is one car he bought new in 1954 and has never sold. In fact, 10 years ago he pulled it all apart and rebuilt it again from the ground up. The little Triumph TR2 looks absolutely immaculate, possibly as good as it did the day he drove it out of the Melbourne showroom of Standard Cars, more than 45 years ago.
When we arrive at Scorer's Chadstone home, his wife of 56 years, Noel, who is preparing for a barbecue with friends, jokingly remarks: "You've come to see his car have you? It's just out there. You can pat it and all."
Scorer ignores this banter and leads the way to a well-equipped workshop - lathes, milling machine, oxy gear; you name it, it's probably there. "If I can't buy it, I make it," he says. With a flourish, he pulls back a cover to reveal this bright lipstick-pink little number with bulging headlights. "This is the old girl," he says proudly. "That's just as it was (when it was new). This has been a wonderful motorcar, ever since the day I bought it."
The color, he quietly explains before we jump to any rash conclusions, is actually "geranium red", although it isn't what he chose. "It's the only one that came here of that color, as far as I know," he says, and goes on to explain how it happened.
He ordered the car when he went to London in 1954, "to follow the racing around" and go to Le Mans. It just happened Triumph was doing speed trials on the TR2 in Belgium and he went to see the car when it came back to London. "That (the TR2) did more than the XK120 Jag. I can't remember the speed, but it was well over the ton. It (the TR2) held the world 2.0-litre record at the time."
That was enough to convince Scorer, who, by all accounts, had been involved in a few early-morning speed trials of his own, along with Lex Davison and a few mates, on the old Geelong road, just out of Werribee. But enough said of that.
In any event, he ordered a red TR2. "Doug Whiteford (who raced at the time) had a red one and it was a nice red," he says. Scorer's car was to be delivered to Australia through the importers, Standard Cars. The company rang him at work as soon as it arrived. "I drove in and this (his TR2) was in the window. I said, 'Where's the car?' They said, 'It's in the window.' I said, 'That's not red, it's bloody pink.' They said, 'No, it's geranium red'."
As Scorer says, he couldn't do a thing about it. "They were so bloody hard to get, so I just had to lump it. And you can imagine in 1954 having a car that color?" He was on his way home from work one night along Spencer Street when a policeman on point duty asked him what color it was. "I said, 'Geranium red.' He said (sarcastically): 'That's not what the boys call it'."
The TR2 came with a maroon soft top, but Scorer also ordered a removable hard top, which arrived later. "The hood's buggered now. I never worry about it. It's under the house. I've kept it just in case I need a pattern."
The car is a two-seater, but when Scorer's two sons were young, he put a dickie seat (which he built) in the back. He has restored the car to new condition - new cream-colored leather seats and leather-covered dash ("the instruments are original") and new paintwork. The only canvas pieces are the burgundy side flaps on each door.
The tachometer redlines at 5000rpm and the speedometer tops out at 120mph. "It's shown 110mph (about 180kmh) in overdrive," he grins (it has a four-speed box).
Scorer worked 49 years for a Melbourne wiregoods company; he retired 20 years ago as chief engineer. In his spare time he "used to fiddle around", as he puts it, with cars. "I'd do one up and sell it occasionally. I used to do a lot of engine rebuilds."
He used to do a lot of car racing, too. His father was a mate of racing driver Freddie Dixon, of Riley fame. "I met him (Dixon) as a kid, but I don't remember him much."
Scorer bought his first sports car, a J2 MG, as an 18-year-old, in 1934. "And it's still going. It's now in WA. I rebuilt it. It was an open sports car with cycle guards." But one of the fastest cars he ever owned, he says, was a supercharged 2.0-litre Alta, which he raced at Albert Park, Fishermens Bend and Bathurst.
"That was the fastest-accelerating car in Australia in its day. I rebuilt the engine. That's still going. It was a 140-150mph (240kmh) motorcar. It was a screamer."
He had others, such as the two MG TCs he sold before he went to England, along with a Mark V Jaguar and his little Morris Minor for driving to work.
Then there was the SS Swallow (the Jag's predecessor), which he raced. "I've played around with cars all my life," he says matter-of-factly. But you start to think nearly as many cars have passed through his hands as those of his old adversary, Reg Hunt - and Hunt was a car dealer.
Scorer loves to tell the story of how he found this twin-cam Alfa Romeo engine, which he started to rebuild, and Lex Davison, who raced an Alfa with a single cam, heard about it. He grins as he recalls Davison's words: "You little bastard. I've looked for that engine all over Australia and you've got it in your back yard." (He was building it into a race car.)
But when the TR2 came on the scene, it was to be his favorite; he drove it for pleasure, he raced it and also used it for work. And, by all accounts, the little car did it hard. Scorer talks of driving several times "flat chat" to Brisbane, where the company he worked for had a factory. "I'd be doing 100 to 110mph (about 160-180kmh)," he says with a devilish grin. "Only where you could, of course." Of course!
"There were no speed limits then. You'd be flat chat on the open road. It's only revving at 4000 (rpm) in overdrive at 100mph."
On one trip, says Scorer, bragging just a little, he left Brisbane at 1pm on the Wednesday and pulled into his drive at Yarraville, where he lived at the time, at 2pm the next day. "Straight through," he says. He loved speed, yeah. "The bloody copper at Holbrook didn't, though," he grins. "The bugger picked me up two or three times going through there."
Is it any wonder then that the TR2 was "looking a bit tired", as Scorer puts it, after 70,000 miles (112,000km)? "I'd driven it pretty hard all the time."
He took the car off the road "for about three years" and rebuilt it about 10 years ago. It now has 74,076 miles (119,000km) on the clock. "I took the whole car right down to the chassis rails. I stripped everything off the chassis and started again. Every nut and bolt came out of it." He even pulled the wire wheels apart, had them chromed and rebuilt them.
He had the original color made up by a paint company from a sample he found inside the spare wheel cover. "Basically the car is like it was when I bought it."
Not surprisingly, he's beefed up the engine. It's now got a set of competition sleeves and piston rings, "and I ground the shaft 10-thou." Overall, though, it is original, except for the chromed rocker cover.
Scorer has resisted the temptation to give the little car its head since the rebuild, but ask him how it goes and he smiles contentedly: "It drives like a bird," he says.
TR 2 TRIUMPH
Triumph was a famous British motorcycle factory; it started making tricars in 1903 but didn't build its first four-wheel car - fitted with a 1.4-litre four-cylinder motor - until 1923.
The Triumph Motor Company began building sports models in the late 1920s. After WWII the Government forced British car companies to rationalise, and Triumph, then in receivership, was bought by the Standard Motor Company.
By 1949, Triumphs were fitted with 2.1-litre Standard Vanguard engines. Triumph launched its successful TR series of sports cars in 1953. They were descended from an abortive 1950 design with retractable headlights, aerodynamic bodywork with power top and overdrive gearbox.
The new TR2 weighed only 856 kilograms, had a 2.0-litre 90bhp (67kW) motor, developed out of the Vanguard engine, independent coil and wishbone front suspension, and Lockheed brakes. It could do 160kmh and distinguished itself in competition.
The TR2's successor, the TR3, acquired front disc brakes in 1956 and was built until 1962.
Standard Triumph was taken over by Leyland in 1961.
In 1964 came the TR4, with a restyled body, 2.1-litre engine, rack-and-pinion steering and all synchromesh gearbox. The TR4A followed in 1965, with independent rear suspension.
Power was boosted in the TR5, launched in 1968; it had a 2-1/2-litre six-cylinder fuel-injected engine, replacing the tough old Vanguard unit.
The TR6 was dropped in 1975 and replaced by the TR7, a wedge-shaped sports car equipped with the 2.0-litre Dolomite Spring engine; in 1977, the original four-speed gearbox gave way to a Rover five-speed unit, but there was no convertible version until 1979.
The TR7 and the TR8, powered by a 3-1/2-litre Rover V8, but only sold in the US, were the last of the TR series, which was phased out in 1981.
Compiled using The New Encyclopedia of Motorcars, edited by G.N. Georgano.
© 2000 The Age
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