Following a recent post on the Standard Triumph Experimental Department Facebook, where I added a comment, somebody mentioned this directory and said I was listed but there is no info on me!
So I thought I would email you with some!
I don’t have a record of key dates to hand, so this is just from memory.
I started my apprenticeship in 1971 as an Automobile Apprentice, in the training school at the Torrington Avenue factory. In my second year I moved around all the production areas at Canley and also at Radford.
For my third year I moved into the Experimental Department and worked in Rig Test, Engine Test and Development and finally the Development Office, which was run by Tony Lee. On completion of my apprenticeship I was offered a job in this department. At this time the TR7 was in it’s medium stage of development, but I worked mainly on current cars, mainly on Spitfires and Dolomites and 2,000’s. I did some work on the TR7, very often going to MIRA with Peter and Martin Cox carrying out performance tests. At that time the TR7 had the small car gearbox and back axle and it was quite rare for a test to be fully carried out without the car breaking!
Once the TR7 had been in production for a while, I worked on many of the attempts to prolong the life of the model on projects such as TR8, Lynx, and Broadside, non of which saw full production.
I then worked on the very early Montego prototypes, which then led to a fundamental change in my career, moving into the Prototype Build Department, headed up by Martin Ince. There was a lot of change in the company at this stage and Canley was in its dying days. My Prototype Build roll was mainly on the BIW, coordinating the build of the D02 phase bodies which were being built in 4 locations – Castle Bromwich, Cowley, Abbey panels (Coventry) and Airflow Streamline (Northampton) I then found myself in charge of the Tinsmiths, which at that time were based in one of the last surviving parts of the Canley factory in Fletch South.
My next significant change came when I moved into a Project Management role on the Rover 75 Project Team. The main relevant part of this is that we were based in the VERY last part of Canley before we moved to Gaydon. I still vividly remember trying to concentrate in meetings with all the demolition going on around us!
Just to finish off, from Gaydon I did 4 years at Oxford, then back up to Gaydon and then when we were “dumped” by BMW I moved to Longbridge, which lasted about 6 years I think it was before being made redundant.
I am now living a happily semi retired life down in The New Forest, running a small caravan site.
I hope you find this interesting and that it will add a little bit of value to the site!
Kind regards,
Tim Hood