There was some talk the other day about the car that appeared
at the Monterey Historics bearing the number ADU 4B. I promised
to check out Graham Robson's book "The Works Triumphs" to see
if that would shed any light on the matter.
It was an interesting excercise, but may not really help much.
>From what I can tell, ADU 4B was primarily a backup car for the
team. The first time that it appears to have been run was in the
Sebring 12 hour race in March, 1965 where it finished 2nd in class
and was the highest placing Spitfire. At this time it still had
the 1147 engine with aluminum and fiberglass bodywork. The cars
had (illegal) full synchro GT-6 gearboxes for this race. This
gearbox almost got them thrown out of the Geneva Rally later that
year, but they were able to put non-synchro gearboxes in overnight.
The next, and apparenly only other, time that ADU 4B was used in
competition was at Le Mans in June, 1965 where it finished 13th
overall and first in class. At this point the cars had the smaller
gearbox, smaller rear brakes and a "thinner gauge chassis frame"
(hmmmm, that's interesting) saving 110 pounds over their 1964 weight.
They were also using the aluminum cylinder heads at this time. This
was the last "works" apperance for the Spitfires, although "some
of the cars" were lent to a private team for the 6 Hour Relay at
Silverstone, and Bill Bradley was allowed to use a car for various
events in England and Europe for the rest of the year. Mr. Robson
does not say which car(s) were lent out. Later in the year,
several of the cars (ADU 5B, 6B, 7B and AVC 654B) were fitted
with 1296 engines for the Alpine Rally and thereby became 79X
series cars (the 1147's were called 70X cars for the engine size
in cubic inches). Since these higher numbered cars were reserved
for the works rally program, it is possible that ADU 4B was one
of the cars that was "lent out" but this is impossible to tell
from this book. If so, however, it seems as if it would have
retained the 1147 and aluminum cylinder head.
That's about all that I can get from Mr. Robson's book, and I'm
afraid that it doesn't help much as far as determining if the
car in question is authentic. Aluminum bodywork would help in
that identification, I suppose.
John Lye
rjl6n@Virginia.edu
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