Why did you buy your Stag?

[Essex Stag]

Well why did YOU buy a Stag?
When so many ignorant classic car people consider them one of Britain's worst or most unreliable cars of the 70's. The only thing you get from them Oh they used to overheat ,has it got the Rover engine because a lot of people put a Rover engine in them . I walk away just far enough to admire my car.
I have always loved them ever since I saw the review in the 1970 Autocar magazine. and have always wanted one . When I was older and wiser , I think I am, I started to listen to people who said they were unreliable and bought a MGB GT still regretting not being able to have a Stag. I also own a 1961 Rover P4 100 a beautiful car. The reason I bought my Mk2 Stag was I was looking at buying a MK2 Jag as an investment as their prices are going through the roof thought I could earn more buying a classic Jag if of course I get a good one , than leaving the funds in the Building society at a pittance of 1.7%. looked at 3 jags all rubbish and overpriced, and on the way home from Deal Kent thought I would just look at this Stag in Rochester Kent that had come on Car and Classic that day, It was love at first site , when he started her up with the four branch tubular manifold and sports ss exhaust I was besotted so was my son .
Even if I have spent nearly a grand on her in two months since buying her I will give her a second chance and I am still in love.
Derek

[pcoleman]

love at first sight in 1970,cut the picture out of a mag and stuck it on my bedroom wall ( I was still at school )

peter

[milothedog]

As an apprentice working in a Rootes main dealers (who also repaired other makes) I was given a water pump to change on one (bearing had gone) I took it for a drive afterwards it was an auto magenta car, roof down with Neil Diamond singing beautiful noise on the 8 track. That's when it started. Buying a house and bringing up my Son, my Wifes Health and other family commitments got in the way of having one so Rover SD1's were substituted.

It then came to a point in 2009 when my Wife talked me in to realizing a dream for my 50th birthday and as they say the rest is history.

As a foot not, being a mechanic and having worked in trade all my life I thought I knew what to expect owning a Stag. How wrong I was. What I'm getting at here is the social side of things and all the great people I have met, some of which me and my wife regard as personal friends now.

Ian.

[DJT]

Always admired them when they were on sale in the 70s, but couldn't afford one. When funds were available for a 'toy' we had two young children (7 & 9), so a Stag seemed ideal. 24 years later, and on my second Stag, I still love getting in and driving the Stag in preference to our Euroboxes.

[Guest]

I keep asking myself the same question and I still don't know why I bought one - other than "I think I fancy buying a Stag"! When they were in production, it never entered my head to buy one. At that time, I bought a Granada and I don't know why I did that either!

[andy p]

loved them from being a kid, had one at the age of 17 but could not afford to maintain it or run it so it had to go, wanted another one from the day it went.

[NickA]

Always wanted a Stag after watching Hazell in the late 70's. Had to be a green one as well!

[mjb67]

I'd been wanting to get a classic for a long time, and my great uncle and uncle had had TRs back in the day so I was kinda leaning towards Triumph. For a long time I thought I would get a Spitfire but with a baby in the family now, and having heard a lot of good things about the quality of Stags I decided to take the plunge..

[GDPR]

Mine was my present to myself for surviving a heart attack. I had a "Stag fund" savings account that was only sitting at about 2k, because I kept dipping in for other toys, but a critical illness policy paid out on my heart (great policy, no longer available) so wife told me to go and buy one.

Always loved Triumphs and had loads, so had my brother so between us we'd had most models but not Stags. Loved the Stag on first sight, an ex girlfriend had one, and due to the main dealer connection knew they could be a decent car if dealt with right...

So the the die was cast. ....the sound..that woofly burble that gets just loud enough to make people turn, and make them look at one of the prettiest cars ever to come out of The UK, and the sheer family friendly fun you can have.. there really was no other car for me.

And I wasn't wrong - still grin like a nutter when that engine fires up...

Russ

[Richard Saunders]

My dad had a part time job at the local Triumph dealership when I was a kid, back in the days when someone used to put the petrol in your car for you. In the summer mum would take me round to see him and I'd spend a couple of hours with my nose pressed up at the showroom window (I'm sure the sales manager loved that!). My abiding memory is seeing a brand new Stag in the showroom - Sapphire Blue - and wanting one ever since. 40 years later I bought my own Sapphire Blue, funnily enough about the same age as that one I saw all those years ago. I flirted with a couple of MGB, including a V8, but really it was a Stag I always wanted.

[m9fdb]

For me it was when i was 15 and saw a few Stags in the now defunct SP Autos Showroom in Rainham Essex. I was on the way to the breakers to get bits with my Dad for his Rover P6 V8 (the good old days when the breakers were full of classics !!!)
We stopped at SP Autos and had a look around and i was offered a Saturday job there cleaning the cars in the showroom and it all began from there for me.

I had a couple of Dolomite's and then got a 2500S when I was 19 as i couldn't afford a Stag at the time and have now had 4 Stags over the years and seem to keep coming back to them.

[jakesmig]

First came accross them when a colleague fixed one, in '76, whose timing chain had gone at 15K miles wrecking the engine. Same colleague & I reshelled a wrecked one in '78 and I remember enjoying the torque and the noise.
I had a couple of MG Midgets in the '70's and put another together in '98 which became a 'sad ba****ds' obsession and developed into a ludicrously rapid road/track day car which I still get a lot of fun out of.
Becoming older, with, unfortunately, an increasing circumferance, sore knees, hip, back etc, getting out of the MG, whilst hilarious for onlookers, can be a real chore, so I started looking for an alternative.
MGB? god forbid, MX5, Z3, hairdressers cars, Z4 pimps motor, Honda S2000 yes, any day of the week, but too costly & complicated. I doubt any of these cars will become popular classics, not thaat they aren't good / great & popular cars, I happen to think that the electronics will kill them off because there will be no aftermarket backup for them in 20/30 years for all the management systems etc.
Enter the Stag, deliberately went for an RV8 tax free ( yeah, boo, hiss....don't give a toss). Sorted the machanicals, and have enjoyed lots of good motoring over the last 3 years or so but now it's the turn of the bodywork so it's back off the road again.
I help service a couple of cars in the SRC Rally Championship and generally take the Stag to the events. Surprising how many people come over for a look & chat, some comenting that I have fitted the proper engine, which perversely I refute, then go on to defend the TV8, go figure
Next year, once the bodywork is done I'm going to fit a better exhaust system and get the engine properly tuned, gone will be the GT tag perhaps and maybe it'll keep up with the Midget.
John

[Tdm]

Owned a Mk3 and a Mk4 Spitfire in the 70's and when I went to the Triumph Dealers in Blackpool to pick them up, each time there was a Stag for sale in the showroom which I thought looked absolutely fabulous, but it was way beyond what I could then afford. Told myself when I retired I would have one, and used part of my Redundancy money to buy one in 1994 (and fate decreed there was one for sale in my North Wales village at the time).
Never ever regretted it, and over the almost 20 years I have had it now, it has not been all that expensive to run as if I can I like to get my hands dirty and fix things myself. Most expensive repair was having a new Crank fitted in 2003 (prior to Emigration) and at the same time fixing the rear suspension, and that job I left to a specialist in Chester. If money were no object - still can't think of another Classic that I would prefer, although I do like the look of the Ferrari 330GT (the model similar to the one John Lennon had that was recently auctioned off).

[martin]

Why did I buy a Stag ? Couldn't afford a '57 Chevrolet, a Mercedes Pagoda or a TR5, MGB V8 is too small, as is the TR6, The Stag ticks every single box, but mostly the aural one, it out sounds all the others, including the '57. Martin.

[GDPR]

Didn't know aural was your thing Martin. ...