Last Monday I wrote:
> We're working on a hot one...
> It's a British Racing Green 1976 Triumph Spitfire 1500.
> It's got a verified popped engine (internals became external)
> We think we can get it for $150.
I went and looked at the Spitfire this morning and saw the good and
the bad news. The mechanic told us the tale of woe: dad buys son
sports car, son drives sports car hard, dad pays to fix sports car,
son blows sports car engine, dad blows and dumps sports car.
We walked in and saw it sitting off to one side of the service
garage, surrounded by a number of other cars of various vintages and
states of disrepair. Yup, it definitly was a Spit and Nope, it didn't
look like it had been in an accident. It had obviously been sitting
there for some time and was covered with a coat of black dust so thick
you couldn't tell what color it was. The flat back tire only gave it
an additional look of neglect. For some strange reason, I start to
smile when I see things like that.
First the bad news. It had definitely seen a few miles, 74K to be
exact. It needs a new engine and has some body rust. On the other
hand, it's all there, with the only missing pieces being the two big
black rubber baby buggy bumper pieces off the back bumper.
The engine:
Not much to be said here. The mechanic who had been servicing it
said that it had broken a rod, the remains of which ended up banging
up the crank and jamming into one of the cylinders. Externally, all
the different pieces appear to be there. I was able to get pressure
in both the brakes and the clutch.
The body:
As Jim Muller warned, the sills and floor were a bit rough. A
sheet of aluminum had been riveted to the drivers side floor and the
passengers side was rusted thru in one spot. But, the body showed
little noticible flex and I had no problem with the doors binding when
I got in and shut the door. The interior was the typical el-cheapo
British Leyland plastic treatment which had held up poorly to the
years of abuse.
Though the picture appears dark, it's not that bad. The whole car
felt solid and all the pieces are there. There was no play in the
steering, the suspension felt tight and there wasn't any of the
creaking and groaning that usually indicates a basket case. For what
it's worth, the mechanic said the transmission and the rear end were
solid and that the owner had just had some work done on the front
suspension.
Time to haggle. I had set an upper limit of $150 for it. I got
the owner on the phone and he said he thought that he had already sold
it last week to someone else for $125. I told him Nope, the car and
the title were still there at the shop, I was here today with the cash
and that the shop said that it needed some money to cover some work it
had done on it. Fine, he said, he didn't care. Pay the shop the $125
and he would collect the balance from them.
So, I bought it, eighty to the owner and forty-five to cover the
shop. We'll haul it out of the shop this weekend and do a post-mortem
on the engine and start looking around for a replacement....
Lawrence Buja
ccm0b@vm.cc.purdue.edu
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