Fewer than two weeks ago, the call finally came. I'd been waiting for this news for five long weeks. It was finally here, this shipping container I'd been tracking online for what had seemed like an eternity since it left the port of Vigo in Spain, just north of the border with Portugal.
Could I, enquired the voice on the phone, please make my way down to a shipping facility in Dubai’s Ras Al Khor district, known as Aladdin Container Yard? There I would be met by a man called Nabeel who works for Top Most Freight Solutions, the company I had tasked with getting the container through customs and dealing with all the no doubt infuriating paper trails and other red tape. Of course I could make my way there – I’d been checking the location of that steel container emblazoned with the Maersk logo each morning for 36 days. Inside was my new baby, and I needed to make sure it was in one piece, to see if it’s OK after its epic voyage. I needed to liberate it.
I arrived, met Nabeel, and followed him in the Volkswagen Scirocco that has been my main mode of personal transport for the past four years, to another yard that looked to all intents and purposes like it had been used for bomb testing. An articulated lorry was parked up with the container on its trailer, backed up to a rusting metal ramp. Another man came up, asked some questions to verify I was the person this box was meant for and took some bolt cutters to the shipping seal. As the two heavy doors were heaved open, screeching, there it was: an orange Triumph TR6. My TR6. My toy, my new life partner, my own piece of motoring history. And this, almost unbelievably, was the first time I had ever clapped eyes on it.
Laughing out loud, I dashed up the ramp to give it a cursory visual inspection. The ignition key swung from its barrel, it was without number plates and the convertible roof was up, locked into place just as the seller had promised me it would be. There was a thin film of dust all over its paint and a bird had obviously taken a shine to it when it was at the docks in Vigo, having marked its territory on one of the Triumph’s rear flanks. But none of that mattered, for that quick visual inspection told me what I needed to know: that this was a car that had been meticulously restored and looked after ever since. It was, without a doubt, absolutely immaculate.
Sat in its driver’s seat, I steered it out of its tomb and down the ramp as two men pushed. Once on the ground, I took a deep breath and turned the key. Would it start? Would the battery be flat? Was there any fuel in its tank? So many questions that would be answered in just a few seconds’ time – about 30 seconds it turned out – before the 2.5L, straight-six engine under its bonnet spluttered into life and settled into a reassuringly rhythmic idle. My baby was alive.
Now you may well be wondering what the big deal is here. I’ve imported a British classic car from Europe and it has arrived safe and well in Dubai: so what, haven’t plenty of people done that before me? Yes, but instead of me paying for someone else to sort everything, I have taken the path of maximum resistance and arranged pretty much everything myself. And the fact, having been through the processes involved, I still have at least some hair left and am still married shows that it’s not something to be afraid of. If I can do it, so can you.
Why do it in the first place, though? The UAE is a motoring paradise, after all, and there’s no shortage of desirable metal on sale, no matter what you currently fancy. Yes, there are one or two TR6s on sale here, too, but I knew I could get a better deal by importing one myself from overseas.
Having been lusting after a Ferrari 308 for the past few years and seen them rising in value through the stratosphere, just as I thought I was making sufficient headway in saving enough money for one, I’ve known for some time that I had to readjust my sights if I wanted something a bit special. While I was talking with some of Ferrari’s classic-car guardians at an event in 2012, a website was recommended to me. This site, I was assured, was where they turn to first when on the lookout for a car. I cannot tell you how many cumulative days – weeks even – I have spent trawling through www.autoscout24.eu, but ask me the going price for practically any classic or exotic car in mainland Europe right now and I’ll probably give you an extremely accurate answer.
While I became familiar with the values of all manner of beautiful and historically significant vehicles, the one thing I seemed unable to do was choose one to buy myself. And then it happened: the “light bulb” or “eureka” moment. Sat watching a film called Kill the Messenger one mid-March afternoon with Mrs H, she asked me what the green sports car was that the central character was driving. “That’s a Triumph TR6,” I replied. “My dad used to have one when I was little. Why?”
“Because it’s really cool,” she responded. “I like it.”
As if I needed any excuse, as soon as the film was over, I was all over that website, looking at the 80 or so TR6s on sale in Europe. I had enough money sitting in my account to buy, I thought, a fairly clean example and still afford all the shipping costs, so I showed my long-suffering wife a selection that I’d shortlisted. My newfound and ridiculously urgent need for a TR6 was, understandably, lost on her. But I was a man on a mission, and narrowed the search down to just one: a “carrot” orange 1976 model – one of the very last made before production ended and the era of the great British sports car died with it.
Emails to the seller, a man called Roberto who lives in Vigo, were quickly exchanged. Why, I enquired, was the price so low? What did it need doing to it? After all, in the United Kingdom there was one for sale at exactly the same price that was basically in need of complete restoration. Spain, it turns out, is the place to buy cars like this, because of its woeful economic situation. What you might find on sale in Germany, France, Italy or the UK, could be half the price in Spain. But still I felt nervous about buying something like this unseen, especially as my wife was getting a bit panicky about her trigger-happy husband.
Roberto, it turned out, was used to doing deals this way. He’s a manager for a famous museum and exhibition centre in northern Spain, looking after the Portuguese side of things (LinkedIn can come in handy for all sorts of things), and as a hobby imports classic air-cooled Porsches and Volkswagens from North and Latin America to restore and sell on in Europe. Indeed, in some of the photographs he had sent me of the TR6, I could see the outlines of at least four classic Porsches under wraps in his garage. I began to feel more at ease, especially after a couple of phone calls between us. I had a feeling that Roberto was one of the good guys, no matter what Mrs H said.
On the verge of trading in a substantial amount of air miles for a return ticket to Spain, I had another eureka moment. Why not find an inspection service that could produce a report for me? It would be quick, easy, inexpensive and, unlike me, they would know what they were looking at. There was one in the same city that specialises in classic British cars, called Juan Lumbreras, who agreed to carry out a thorough inspection. The man I spoke to also confirmed that prices in Spain right now are on the floor, so the TR6 wasn’t necessarily going to be a basket case.
Three days later, English- speaking Nuno explained over the phone that the car was as good as any he’d ever seen and stopped just short of saying: “If you don’t buy it, I will.” He’d had it up on the ramps, lifted the carpets, removed the spare wheel, taken the battery out to check for corrosion and taken it for a 30-minute test drive. The only thing he could say needed attention was a slight weep from the rocker cover gasket. Even I know that’s an easy fix, so a deal was done, money was wired and arrangements started to come together.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll take you through the various stages of importing a car into the UAE – it’s far too involved to talk about in one shot. But it’s perhaps timely to mention why this car means so much to me. The TR6 is the car that got me into cars.
As I hinted earlier, when I was a boy, my father bought one and drove it for about a year. When he sold it, I cried. Now I have my own, my father reminds me of the power of first love. He’s absolutely right, and after the car passed its inspection test here, was registered and insured, my first drive back to the office now ranks as one of the finest in my life. My wife? She calls it silly. Me? I call it life-affirming.
As for how much I paid, let’s just say one for sale in Dubai in similar condition was offered recently for Dh125,000.
How the TR6 and I will get on, nobody knows. As with any long-term relationship, I’m expecting the occasional breakdown and unplanned expenses. But as I squeeze that throttle, hear the incredible sound of its six-cylinder engine, feel the rear squat as it accelerates and see the appreciative smiles, waves and lifting of thumbs by other drivers who probably have never seen a car such as this, I know all the effort has been worth it. This one’s a keeper.
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