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Rob & Shirley Shiel (N QLD) now have their Australian Assembled TR3 on the road. Rob describes some of the car's history:

"It seems that the first owner within the Register was David Barath (QLD). He recorded that the car came from Mt Isa in the early 70s. The Commission plate was stamped 073 TR3. The car was off the road for almost 40 years and in that time David had done the mechanicals and the body. David sold the car to Lance Jorgensen (Cairns) in Dec 2007 and Lance did some work on the car.

When I brought the car from Lance the car was painted a dark metallic green and had considerable humidity blisters in the paint work. Lance was restoring a TR6 at the time and he didn’t think he had the time to do the car again. I had the paint removed and found considerable body filler, around 30kg. This probably caused the humidity blisters as the car was painted in the Tropics (Townsville).

I had all the body filler removed and found all the panels were straight with the exception of the front apron which had suffered a hit at some time in its life. It would appear excessive body filler was used because whoever did the body couldn’t get the panels aligned!.

I had the car primed and let it sit for a year to see if there was a reaction. Fortunately all was well and I had the car painted black, an original TR colour as the metallic green in the engine bay was so dark that it looked black. This avoided taking the engine out. I think the car was originally red. I brought new seat frames from Ballarat and an interior kit from Moss Motors in tan, looks great with the black.

I didn’t like the Moss Motors carpets though, and imported mid brown Rolls Royce quality carpets from the UK and had the interior fitted by Barry Archer in Port Douglas who had done many quality restorations when in business in Victoria.

The car then sat for around 4 years waiting for all the fiddley things to be done. I then had the good fortune to come across Brendon Hamersley of the Cairns Restorers Club and an owner of a very nice MGB and an Austin Healey 100/6 to rally car spec. Brendon completed the car and did a fantastic job chasing missing small bits, getting the carburettors rebuilt, overdrive working, RWC etc. I had the car registered with Queensland black and white plate that came in the series N, O and P.

I picked the car up from Brendon on March 26 2017 and drove the car to Port Douglas. The car drove faultlessly, a bit of a surprise given that it had not been driven since the 1970s"