A STAG ESTATE?

Let’s start our story with the car. To the casual observer, this simply looks like a very nice example of a Mk2 Triumph 2.5PI estate. However, as soon as you hear the engine running, the distinctive exhaust note tells you that it has a Triumph V8 engine under the bonnet rather than the standard-fit straight six. That is not unheard of these days as a number of enterprising owners have given their cars engine transplants, but this one is a little different.

The man behind it was Ian Lines, always known as Del, who ran Atlantic Garages in Weston-super-Mare. In 1973 Del started to buy new 2000/2500 shells from Leyland, fit them with factory-returned Stag engines that were rebuilt either by Richard Longman or Downton Tuning, complete the cars with a mixture of new and secondhand trim then knock them out as new cars, registered under Atlantic Garages chassis numbers.

After a while, Leyland got the hump because Del was marketing his cars as Stag Estates. They refused to sell him any more bodyshells, so Del then started converting customer cars instead. Del never was one for accurate records, but we think there were about 26 new saloons and estates, and maybe another 40 or 50 conversions on customer cars.

Alan’s car was the very first to be converted in this way, and it has always been known within Triumph circles as DEL 33, after the private number Del had on it for a while. So far so good, but why