Heralding a Mystery

As someone who appreciates a bit of left-wing satire, I follow The Daily Mash on Facebook.

But, as a UK car nerd, I was somewhat irked by this which appeared on my feed:

Every UK car nerd knows that they stopped building Triumph Heralds well before the 1976 that that P registration indicates.

So what is the story and why does that number plate look so familiar to me?

Was it one of the several "driven" by Thora Hird playing Edie in Last of The Summer Wine?

I put driven in quotes because

a) I don't know if Thora actually drove the cars herself

b) Whoever was driving, the joke was that Edie was crap at driving

But, in either case - no:

So, if it isn't Edie's, then I must know it from somewhere else.  A search or for "Red Triumph Herald Convertible" brought up no more images of it - not even the one from the Daily Mash piece.  A search for the registration number did bring up that photo though - but bugger all else.  Search by Image didn't help either - it just brought up some similar cars plus some Imps and Simcas.

So, what does mycarcheck tell us?

It tells us it really is a Trumph Herald from 1976:

But, of course, it can't be.  Can it?

The Government MOT check site tells us more.  It tells us that it is a 1969 car that was first registered in 1976.

Incidentally, there are only 5 MOTs recorded on there from 2013 to 2018 (when the rules were changed and MOTs were no longer required on cars over 40 years old.)  It looks like it was only doing about 100 miles in between those MOTs so I guess that it just goes to car shows every so often.

So why wasn't in registered for the first seven years of its life?

Sometimes it has been stuck in a car showroom or private collection and sometimes it has been a military vehicle.  Surely the military wouldn't be interested in a convertible Herald would they?

Except that is the wrong colour and it is left-hand drive.

So not the one Daily Mash have found.

So where did they find it?

And why does it look familiar?

I haven't the foggiest.

Would you sell your Granny?

Somebody is.

And if I had £5K spare and some space and some time to travel down to East Anglia (as opposed to Ford Anglia - there's one of them for sale too) I would certainly be interested in making a purchase.

After all, she is beautiful:

It's the rarer 3-door coupe style as well.

 

So what alerted me to this sale?

 

This did.

 

It is a story from the BBC about a 1961 Triumph Herald up for sale with just 20 miles on the clock.  It is believed that the "one careful lady owner" never actually drove it. 

Sounds a bit like the story of the Merc I found in Swansea.

 

It goes under the hammer on Saturday together with the car you can just see behind it.

 

The car in the picture behind it interests me because my first car was identical to it.

 

OK, it had a different registration number and was three years younger but it was a Triumph Dolmite 1500HL in Vomit Yellow (aka Sandglow).

 

It must be in excellent condition because it is estimated to go for between £14K and £16K - although they've clearly got the colour wrong in the listing (brown) and the mileage too (69 - maybe they meant 69000)

 

I don't think they are too clever when it comes to the listings.  They have the mileage for the Herald that is making the headlines down as being 3750 (next to a photo of the speedo that shows 20).

 

3750 is still unbelievably low for a 50-year-old car and probably belongs to a second Herald the auctioneers are selling that they have listed as having 20 miles.

 

I would love to have a wander around this auctioneers site - the actual, physical site, not the website, although that is pretty interesting too.

 

For example, they have a 1988 Rover 213 - why on Earth would that be a classic?

 

Well, to answer my own question (and I bet you thought it was rhetorical) it only has 3101 miles on the clock and is expected to fetch £3K.

 

They also have Granny's successor for sale: 

Oh dear.  Maybe not.