johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Well it didnt quite go over onto the roof but ended up on its side after going into a roundabout too fast and then braking while turning. It went very quickly and there was nothing I could do to stop it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
micmak Posted July 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Yikes!!! Hopefully you weren't hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 41 minutes ago, johny said: You will have to get used to driving a 50+ year old car as the handling is not so predictable like a modern vehicle and as I found out its quite easy to turn over a vitesse☹️ Part of the 'learning curve'. When I first got my 13/60 I was a bit to enthusiastic on a roundabout as well, caught the drift before any 'oops!' nobody else about to see my embarrassement. Also went into a steep downhill bend a bit too fast, again corrected quick enough. Strange thing though, I've come across quite a few Ex Vitesse owners here in France who all seem to have suffered from 'car in ditch syndrome'. don't know if that is due to bad drivers or roads. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Twitchen Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 The teaching at the time was 'slow in, fast out'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 I was 21 at the time so it was fast in, fast out and not just the driving😂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stratton Jimmer Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 19 hours ago, johny said: Ive had both Mick and dont miss OD now. You might want to consider going to a higher ratio diff (3.63) at a later date but even this has its down sides... My last Vitesse was non-OD and was good for 105 MPH indicated regardless of load. It had a standard differential and apart from having three spots mounted between the headlights was absolutely standard. It was a great car and I miss it still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 34 minutes ago, micmak said: Yikes!!! Hopefully you weren't hurt. No, only pride but then it was a hard top🤔 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 5 minutes ago, Dick Twitchen said: The teaching at the time was 'slow in, fast out'. Slow in, fast out or not out at all. My driving instructor (1970) kept saying - lose the speed on the straight or lose the car on the bend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Lindsay Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Slow down on the approach, enter the bend at the proper speed, and use the engine to pull you round the bend as you accelerate again, otherwise it's the 'Triumph Wheelbarrow Race'.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trigolf Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Many years ago going down to meet friends in Cornwall and running late. Entered a tight corner that continued to tighten up, panicked and broke the cardinal rule by slamming the brakes on. Vit ( dhc) went onto 2 wheels and continued like this for several yards, before slamming back down onto all 4 wheels. Needless to say I pulled over immediately ( no other motorist around) and sat there for several minutes to settle my heart rate. I then completed my journey at a more sedate speed.😳 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Ha, yes you only do it once dont you😰 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NonMember Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 21 minutes ago, trigolf said: broke the cardinal rule by slamming the brakes on The one that surprised me, in my current Vitesse, was taking a slip road too fast (onto the A303 at Andover). Like your experience, it tightened up significantly, to the point where I had no choice but to brake, albeit with the presence of mind to do so progressively. I was all ready for the back end to break away or the inner wheels to lift... but Tessa just calmly took it in stride, almost like a modern car. I have experienced the need to "sit there for several minutes" with my first Vitesse, a couple of times. When it was new to me I took a turning off the A420 near Oxford way too fast, and found myself facing the main road after a 270 degree spin. Then one wet morning on the A4 near Reading, too fast into a roundabout (and locked up the wheels when braking on the approach) ended up on the central hump facing the wrong way. However, at no point in my many years of Triumph motoring have I ever got one anywhere close to tipping. Perhaps I don't buy grippy enough tyres. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 2 hours ago, Chris A said: Part of the 'learning curve'. When I first got my 13/60 I was a bit to enthusiastic on a roundabout as well, caught the drift before any 'oops!' nobody else about to see my embarrassement. Also went into a steep downhill bend a bit too fast, again corrected quick enough. Strange thing though, I've come across quite a few Ex Vitesse owners here in France who all seem to have suffered from 'car in ditch syndrome'. don't know if that is due to bad drivers or roads. . . Ditto, entering the A690 from the roundabout at Durham in the rain I started to lose the back end. Hadn’t ever even driven anything RWD till I got the Herald let alone something 40 years old! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Think it makes a difference Mk1 Vit/Herald or Mk2 Vit with the former quite a lot worse which of course was the reason for the change of design... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris A Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Josef said: Hadn’t ever even driven anything RWD till I got the Herald let alone something 40 years old! I had the good fortune to learn to drive in a 13/60 back in 1970, so RWD, no power brakes or power steering was the norm . .Ok there were a few FWD cars around then Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
micmak Posted July 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 All this talk of losing control reminds me of an event I had totally forgotten about. Years ago, I was driving along in slow-moving traffic. The guy behind me got impatient and decided to overtake me. As he was completing the overtake and moving back to the left side, he realized that it wasn’t just me being slow, but ALL the traffic was slow. He had to jump on the brakes. The car started to fishtail to the left and then to the right. I was amazed that he didn’t lose control completely or hit the guy in front. And guess what he was driving? A Herald!!!! I had forgotten until all the talk here about losing control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johny Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 And then theres people who say our brakes are no good! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NonMember Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Ha! That reminds me of an incident in Thatcham when I lived there. The guy behind me (something Japanese - I was in a tatty Vitesse) was obviously frustrated with me being slow. Never mind that I was being held up by two modern cars. We got to a cross-roads, where the car in front wanted to turn left and the one in front of him was in the slip lane to turn right. I slowed right down to let them get on with it. Mr Impatient behind me took this as a signal to overtake, roared out, saw the car turning right, slammed on his brakes too late and ploughed straight into the stationary car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
micmak Posted July 8, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Good grief. Obviously, my computer is spying on me. It is watching to see what I post and where I post it, and then feed me related material. In the space of 10 minutes, my Facebook feed showed me 4 different photos featuring or including either a Vitesse or a Herald! I don’t remember ever seeing a pic of these cars anywhere online unless I looked for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badwolf Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Big Brother is watching you and this is one of the reasons I don't do Farcebook. Cue thread drift!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Lindsay Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Cookies. I blame cookies. They're everywhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrishawley Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 4 minutes ago, Badwolf said: Big Brother is watching you and this is one of the reasons I don't do Farcebook. Cue thread drift!! Bring on the the thread drift!!!! It is now well known that all the major social media and tech platforms harvest information about the end user (you!) and then sell that information to other parties. The other parties then use that information in whatever way suits their desires; mostly those desires being to sell the end user stuff they don't need or to mamipulate the opinions of the user on matter of soical concerrn. The technical name for all of this is 'Surveilance Capitalism'. Even if you don't use Facebook (for example) that's not the end on the story because FB pays other sites to harvest data for them covertly. Solutions are not easy but two simple steps which help are: *Use a freestanding browser such as FireFox rather than Chrome or Safari. * Use a free standing search engine such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage rather than Google. Much more one could say, but I'll stop there lest trying to be informative turns into a rant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badwolf Posted July 8, 2022 Report Share Posted July 8, 2022 Currently using Opera and D D Go. Basic house rule, if it's affiliated to 'Meta', avoid where possible, use a VPN and keep AV software etc up to date. It's a nuisance but I don't get bothered too much...yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mabel Posted July 9, 2022 Report Share Posted July 9, 2022 Hi, i have a 69 mk2 Vitesse convertible and it is in great condition, had been fully restored. Mine was recently valued at €12,500 here in Holland (I just imported it from England). It was valued at £8500 before it left. Not sure if this helps you decide! ... just out of curiosity... does anyone know why my windows don't go all they way down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
micmak Posted July 10, 2022 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2022 9 hours ago, Mabel said: Hi, i have a 69 mk2 Vitesse convertible and it is in great condition, had been fully restored. Mine was recently valued at €12,500 here in Holland (I just imported it from England). It was valued at £8500 before it left. Not sure if this helps you decide! ... just out of curiosity... does anyone know why my windows don't go all they way down? Wow. Yes, that DOES help me decide. Those numbers make my purchase seem really good. Thanks for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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