I'd like to say hi to everyone. I have just joined the forum. My first TR7 was a white tin top bought in 1987 - which I kept for 15 years as my sole transport. When I first bought it, aged 9 years old, everyone told me it was total rubbish, looked disgusting and would never be a classic. This was from friends and acquaintances driving a Vauxhall Astra 1.6, Cavalier SRi, Sierra Ghia, Orion 1600E, etc. By the time my car finally died in the early part of this decade, those same friends were quite smitten with my TR7 - how times change!
Since then I've had several 7s, including a 'brand new old stock' 36m from new example, a mint late TR8 EFi, and have just bought a 25k mile FHC in Persian Aqua. I prefer the fixed head - the body is much tauter, the sunroof is great and it even looks a quite characterful now - when everyone used to call it ugly.
I'm a huge fan of SD1s too (which is essentially a 'long wheelbase TR7 if you look closely under the skin), and have many. I've also had a Lotus Esprit for my sins, Range Rovers and so on - but right now I have five classic Jags and a Rover 75 as my daily driver! Still, despite all these beauties, I've missed TR7s like hell since I sold my '8 - so it's great to be back behind the wheel of what is for me the purest derivative - the 7 FHC. Even though I loved my 8 with a passion, I always thought the 7s were better balanced, less nose heavy and nicer to drive thanks to the non-PAS rack. Still, it's horses for courses - all the wedges are superb cars if you have a good example - and very practical too.
Having had the most unfashionable car on the road in 1987, it's amazing now - 21 years later - how the public reaction has changed. It's almost always praised by passers by. I think the shape looks far less dated than other cars of its era and in some ways quite modern. The side 'swage' line shocked people in the 1970s, but now it's on loads of new cars, as are near vertical rear windows, small glass area swooping side windows, etc. I think it really was - as the ads used to say - "the shape of things to come".
