Freebird Posted January 8, 2008 Posted January 8, 2008 My friend took these pictures whilst on holiday in India over Christmas. Interesting eh? Well a bit. Looks like an Indian 4 door saloon with the roof removed to me. Just imagine how flexible it would have been on their ropey old roads!!Past saving even if you were local probably. Keep an eye out for it in PC's "Rust in peace"
heraldcoupe Posted January 8, 2008 Posted January 8, 2008 Lovely - I bet that rear door moves about a bit.....That one might have a few bits of trim I need for mine,cheers,Bill.
Nick Jones Posted January 8, 2008 Posted January 8, 2008 MMM, flexible......... poor old thing needs rescuing!Nick
heraldcoupe Posted January 8, 2008 Posted January 8, 2008 Nick_Jones wrote:poor old thing needs rescuing!Not doing that again, though with hindsight I can see the benefits of a four door saloon over the estate. Not a big fan of the fibreglass roof and tailgate on mine, the saloons were all steel. As well as the roof, that one's lost the window frames around the door glass.Cheers,Bill.
Straight Six Posted January 8, 2008 Posted January 8, 2008 heraldcoupe wrote: I bet that rear door moves about a bit.....Bill.I bet it does too!! :oSurprised it would even stay shut!
ferny Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 "That's not body flex, it's designed like that to dampen the bumps."
mk2vitesses Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 Surely if this a "factory" made car it must be worth saving???
heraldcoupe Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 mk2vitesses wrote:Surely if this a "factory" made car it must be worth saving???It's not a factory made convertible, it's a home conversion from an original four door Standard Herald Mk3 Saloon. Any Herald would now be considered quite rare in India, but there are only a handful of people there with any real interest in them.Let's just say that if I was seriously considering exporting another Indian car, I would be looking for one which was more substantially original,Cheers,Bill.
herald948 Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 heraldcoupe wrote:...with hindsight I can see the benefits of a four door saloon over the estate....Admittedly, that's one thing that always puzzled me a bit about the Herald. It's predecessor, the Standard 8 and 10, were four-door cars, and its supposed successor, the 1300, was also a four-door. (Oddly, when the 1300 morphed into the Toledo, it was as a two-door, but then the four-door version was introduced; perhaps Triumph saw the mistake and fixed it?)Only real rationale I can come up with is that staying with just the basic two-door style on the Herald made it even more economically feasible to develop so many variants with a minimum of extra tooling costs. Yet they did go to the trouble to produce the prototype (and ultimately offer it to STAMPRO), so.... ?
valencia1 Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 don't think the herald body would have been rigid enough for four doors compared to the standard 8/10's one piece body
heraldcoupe Posted January 9, 2008 Posted January 9, 2008 My four door estate is quite robust, certainly more rigid than any Herald or Vitesse convertible I've been involved with. I imagine that a saloon with a steel roof would have been stronger still. The four door saloons had a much thicker rear roof pillar which I assume would contribute substantially to the overall structure. Cheers,Bill.
Freebird Posted January 10, 2008 Author Posted January 10, 2008 BillHave you got any photos of your 4 door estate?Glen.
heraldcoupe Posted January 10, 2008 Posted January 10, 2008 I have a bunch of photographs taken when the four door estate first arrived. These predate my use of a digital camera, and I can't find the prints.....I'll search out the prints, in the meantime, here are a couple of pictures taken just before it left India,Cheers,Bill.
Jonny-Jimbo Posted January 10, 2008 Posted January 10, 2008 What's the deal with registering a car like an Indian Herald over here when it comes to Tax etc?
heraldcoupe Posted January 10, 2008 Posted January 10, 2008 It will be registered on an age related plate appropriate to when it was made in India, in this case 1969. Cheers,Bill.
Straight Six Posted January 11, 2008 Posted January 11, 2008 That's an interesting tailgate, did all the Indian estates have one like that?
heraldcoupe Posted January 11, 2008 Posted January 11, 2008 All of the Herald Mk3 Companions had this style of tailgate, which is made of fibreglass. There were reputedly Companion (Estate) versions of the later Standard Gazel, but I have never seen a photograph of one,Cheers,Bill.
G.in_Lux Posted January 11, 2008 Posted January 11, 2008 The Gazel is Pug...Reminds me of the Eastern block during a harsh winter
madherald Posted October 2, 2010 Posted October 2, 2010 Freebird wrote:My friend took these pictures whilst on holiday in India over Christmas. Interesting eh? Well a bit. Looks like an Indian 4 door saloon with the roof removed to me. Just imagine how flexible it would have been on their ropey old roads!!Past saving even if you were local probably. Keep an eye out for it in PC's "Rust in peace"Sorry for the really late reply but just came across this thread! That indeed is a sad looking mk3 Herald! As Bill says, the roof (which is detachable even for these models) as well as the side-window frames are lost, so its sadly an irreversible modification! Besides, the missing parts cant even be sourced locally, considering there are hardly any scrappers showing up nowadays! Having seen Heralds in a similar state, I can presume that it ended up being used as a 'wedding car' on hire, and the 'owner' probably couldnt get his hands on a 2-door Herald for the purpose. Most of the cosmetics is missing on this car but it could still serve as a parts donor then. It most likely doesnt even exist now! I had seen pics. of another 4-door saloon with the roof etc taken off with a 'collector' down south.....it was then turned into- a 2-door convertible!! 'trying to find the pics. Reg. the body rigidity, the 4-door saloons certainly didnt have the kind of rigidity that the 2-door ones had. Contrary to what they might appear as, their bodyshells were primarily of thinner metal than the CKD 2-doorers and are far more prone to rust etc., also being less rigid. These models were also notorious for rattling of the rear doors.The Gazel didnt seem to have this problem (atleast not the one my dad had), maybe because of the roof being integrated with the bodyshell, making it almost a monocoque.
madherald Posted October 17, 2010 Posted October 17, 2010 heraldcoupe wrote:There were reputedly Companion (Estate) versions of the later Standard Gazel, but I have never seen a photograph of one,Hi Bill,In response to your post, here is what would be a period photo of a Gazel estate sent to me by a Max Derrez from NL. He scanned this pic. from an article that was published in what seems to be a French auto mag dated 1979. It was an article covering the then current cars produced all over the world, including 'Indian' cars of the time. Ironically, I used to actually see one of these often here, nearly 10 years ago. It was parked at some garage and appeared to be well-maintained. But unfortunately, looking at the rear hatch, had taken it for some local body-mod (it had the normal saloon rear glass and the lower part of the hatch was shaped much like the normal saloon bootlid of the Gazel) so didn't bother to take any pics. then! I haven't seen the car since either! I also was in touch with a Gazel owner from Madras (now Chennai) many years ago, who'd claimed his neighbour had one that was unfortunately sold for scrap!A friend from Pune too had once sent me a pic. of just the rear hatch from one such car that was also sadly scrapped! It (hatch) appeared to be made of fibreglass, but looked much different from that of the 4-door Herald estate. The rear windscreen for instance, was the same as the saloon's. The side-window glasses (rear) seem to be carried on from the Herald Companion though.
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