Alan Fowler had always wanted a Triumph Stag, but when he finally got his hands on one in 1981, it was something of a disappointment.
The nine-year-old Saffron Yellow car he paid £1,800 for had a sluggish automatic gearbox that proved a “liability” when overtaking, and suffered from chronic overheating problems.
“My wife Marilyn has always nicknamed it the Snag, rather than the Stag, based on all the problems we had,” he says, “but I think she secretly quite likes going out in it these days.”
That’s because rather than give up on the Triumph, Alan decided to put things right with a manual gearbox, a larger radiator, and electronic ignition – as well as a respray to his preferred Pimento Red colour.
“It’s a lovely car now,” he adds, “and all the while I’m compos mentis it will remain with me.
“It’s just the joy of open-top motoring, although I’ve probably spent more money on it recently than I should have done.”
Born and raised on the Isle of Wight, Alan had a short spell in the navy before attending university and buying his first car – an Austin A35 – aged 21.
“I only had that for a short time because I was driving along the main road and a car came out of a side road, ignoring a stop sign, and hit me in the side,” he remembers. “I rolled three times and got out of the door, which was in the roof at the time.
“I didn’t have a seatbelt on, because I don’t think they were fitted. I got moved about the car, whereas if I’d been locked in place I’d have been severely damaged because the whole driver’s side of the car was pushed in.”
A 1953 Hillman Minx followed, then a “bean can blue” Mini 850 that took him to the end of university and went with him to the Netherlands when he was posted to The Hague for work.
By the age of 30, Alan was living and working in Oman as a project engineer for an oil company, and he had his eye firmly on a Stag.
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“At the time, we were coming back to the UK for about two months’ leave each time, and to hire a car for that time would have been quite expensive,” he says, “so what I did was I bought a tatty old car for about £200 with an MoT, and sold them when I left.
“I didn’t want to do that for a third time, so I decided to buy the Stag. I’d always liked the look of them, always thought what a nice car it was, and thought ‘I’ll get one when I’m able’.
“The idea was that it wasn’t going to depreciate much, and I could just leave it in the garage at the house we had and break it out each time we came back on leave.”
Alan found this 1972 car for sale in Dibden Purlieu, not far from their UK home in Marchwood near the New Forest, with about 75,000 miles on the clock.
“I went down there, saw it, and bought it,” he says, “but my first impression was disappointment at the auto gearbox.
“I didn’t think it was a very good automatic box at all; you’d put your foot down and then, nothing. There was not much of a kickdown, so when you were trying to overtake it was almost a liability.
“If there was a space to overtake, and you stuck your foot down, then it was just ‘blurgh’, and the space had gone.”
There were other problems too, including the not uncommon Stag overheating issue.
“It overheated and broke down when I was on my way to the Netherlands in 1983,” says Alan. “The head gasket blew when we were quite near my friend’s house in Little Chalfont, so we went and stayed with them for a weekend and I got it in the garage at Hart Racing Services, run by Tony Hart, who started the Stag Owners Club.
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“He changed the gearbox to the Stag manual four-speed with overdrive, put in the larger radiator, and also fitted Lumenition electronic ignition, because I’d also had problems with constantly having to adjust the timing.
“Once I’d got those things sorted, it was a delight to drive. I sound as if I’m overtaking all the time – I’m not – but if I did want to overtake on a dual carriageway or something, then I could.”
In those early years, the Stag, styled by Giovanni Michelotti and powered by a 3-litre, 143bhp V8, was used for only two months of the year when Alan was in the UK on leave.
“I remember one time when we were visited by relatives,” he says, “two of Marilyn’s brothers and one of their wives, and we went out for the day down to Poole in Dorset.
“One of the brothers sat next to me in the front, with another brother with two ladies in the back. It was a bit of a squeeze.
“One of the nice things about that car – and I know it’s totally illegal – is that when we were on the country roads they could sit up on the back and hold on to the t-bar. But you’d very much get told off for that!
“When I took the Stag over to the Netherlands with a friend, we drove down through the wine-producing area around the Mosel, and it was absolutely delightful just driving around and looking up to the mountains either side of you and seeing the vines up the side.”
After Oman came a few years working in Sarawak on Borneo before returning to the UK in 1987.
“We decided we’d keep the Stag as our only car,” he says, “and really, it was our workhorse.
“When I was working in London for a while it was Marilyn’s daytime and shopping car.”
With the engine and gearbox sorted, Alan set about smartening up the bodywork with a respray in its current Pimento Red.
Son Andrew and daughter Megan came along in 1989 and 1994 respectively, with family holidays down to the Devon area.
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“One of the biggest destroyers of my street cred was having to put a baby seat in the back,” he laughs, also using the car for diving trips down to the south west coast.
“I’m a very keen diver, and I could get all my diving gear in there – a big black box on the back seat and my tanks in the boot.
The family headed to the Grampian region in Scotland for Alan’s work, the Stag making the long journey in one go, complete with its rarely used hard top, the only way to transport it.
“We’d use it up there for weekends away to the west coast,” he says. “Driving around Scotland, you’re a little limited in the periods that you can drive it, but it was absolutely lovely. Quite often we were there with coats pulled up, hats on, and the roof open.”
By now, the Stag was well and truly a second car to be used for highdays and holidays.
And, while it had behaved itself for many years, there was still the odd snag, including another head gasket failure in 2015.
“I took it to this guy who was a retired manager of a BL dealership in Grampian, and he did the top end, a few suspension jobs, and made it suitable for unleaded,” says Alan, now 72, who had the Stag resprayed again at around the same time.
Alan and Marilyn didn’t want to retire to Scotland, so headed back to the Isle of Wight – another one-day trek for the Stag – while they decided where to live, eventually settling on Norfolk.
With daughter Megan’s wedding in Bath on the horizon in 2019, Alan decided to leave the car on the island, drive it from there to Bath – where it carried Megan to the ceremony – and then the long trip home to Norfolk.
After more than 50 years and 136,000 miles, the old car was in need of a little attention, primarily the seats, wheels and consumables.
“It had had the same tyres and battery since 2003 – incredible,” says Alan, “so they obviously needed to be replaced.
“The plastic seating itself wasn’t too bad, but the foam had deteriorated and turned to dust, and as the plastic got more and more stressed there were a couple of little tears.
“But it did well, lasting 50 odd years!”
Alan ordered a set of vinyl seat covers from Aldridge Trimming in Wolverhampton, while Andrew started taking the seats apart, with the frames sent away to be powder coated.
“He tried to fit the seat covers and was doing a good job, but I think Aldridge had made some mistakes with the kits, so he said ‘it’s getting outside my competence level’,” explains Alan.
“So we took it to Moore’s trimmers in Aylsham, and they did such a cracking job on the front I got them to do the back ones too.”
In addition, the wheels – not original to the Stag but on the car when Alan bought it – were sent away to be powder coated, and it has been treated to a new set of carpets.
Whereas the car was once a workhorse, Alan now says it has “become, I suppose, my pet”, a “sunny day driving car to be used for shows and leisurely drives”.
“With the things I’ve done to it lately, I’m quite proud of it and very pleased with it,” he adds.
“When we go to shows, people are mostly just delighted to see old cars still being used and in reasonable nick.”
As for the future, Alan says both of his children “argue about who’s going to have the car when I kick my clogs”.
“But then Marilyn says ‘I’ll have got rid of it by then’,” he smiles. “They would both love to take it on, my son certainly, but they may not necessarily be in a situation where they could house it.”
Until then, Alan and the snag-free Stag have plenty more miles left in the tank.
