Triumph Spitfire re-imagined

Cars

Sometimes it’s good to have your preconceptions challenged. I was brought up and into car culture through the entertaining and sometimes scurrilous Custom Car magazine of the 1970s (below).

Anyone that remembers that wickedly funny ‘zine will remember that as well as marrying cool modded motors with half-naked ladies Custom Car’s editorial was shot through with unadorned hatred of the Triumph Spitfire.

Custom Car Magazine, August 1974

For some reason, the Spitfire seemed to represent to the editorial staff all that pretentious, gutless and twee about motoring in the 1970s.

And being an impressionable pre-teen in those days heady with the reek of Brut 33 and Long Life and John Player Specials, I carried this unjust hatred of the Spitfire with me deep into adulthood.

But recently we stumbled across a little set of pictures of a Spitfrire on the excellent Asphalt Heritage blog, and we’re looking at the Spitfire afresh.

We’re digging the low-slung lines. We’re admiring the purposeful stance and the peaky rear end. We’re thinking that the Spitfire must have been a fun and accessible way into motoring with a bit of passion.

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5 Responses to “Triumph Spitfire re-imagined”

  1. Quadcab

    I used to read Cstom car back then but ironically drove a ’68 Mk3 Spitty. It was an affordable and fun little car. Easy to maintain and you didn’t need a garage to sort it’s niggles out. If I could afford another toy I’d buy a Mk3. Wonderful little car.

  2. Tonyclout

    I bought a 1964 spit as a write off back in the good old days. I rebuilt it with a vittess  6 cylinder engine. I put the GT 6 bonnet on with wire wheels and white tonou cover. It was great fun,fast for its time and looked good. T. C.

  3. Stunning work work Jonny.  I’ve had several, and you have eally caught the essence of  not only the original but how it makes the owner feel. Hope that makes sense! Good luck in your career.

  4. Laycock De Normanville

     It WAS fun and accessible motoring back then.  Once no longer a skint student I spent half of my first  annual salary on a 3 year old one lady owner Spitfire 1500.  Midgets were too cramped and Lotus Elans unaffordable.  I went my honeymoon to Europe in it (from Scotland) , drove it to work for 10 years and tweaked it up for hillclimbs and sprints (usually last but great fun) .  I still have it and it’s still Flux insured. 
    Custom Car was a ghastly mag  – even then in the 70s, standing in your platform shoes  you could see that all those GRP add on wings, spoilers, Roger Dean paint jobs and superflous chrome was naff.  Spitfires were slagged everywhere but where are those 7os hotrods now?   The mag to buy was Car and Car Conversions where you could find out useful stuff like how to improve SU carburettors and read about real driving through forests in RS 1600s.