On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Chip Mautz wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> There's a cool Spitfire in the latest issue of British Car magazine,
> on page 47 (I believe). It's just a small article, about an
> unrestored lightweight racing Spit - Le Mans or Sebring, I can't recall.
I'm assuming (haven't seen the mag. yet) that this is ADU4B, one of the Le
Mans cars (1964-65), also run at Sebring (1965?).
> It's got the bonnet we've been talking about - the fibreglass one we
> want to have fabricated.
>
> It talks about how it was the inspiration for the body of the GT6.
Well, no. That's a common misconception. Actually, molds for the "works"
cars fastback roofs were taken from the existing Michelotti prototype
Spitfire GT, which itself later gained a six-cylinder engine and
essentially became the prototype GT6. Further confusing the issue is the
fact that Triumph themselves "rewrote history" a bit, in describing the
GT6 at its debut as inspired by the LeMans cars (or something to that
effect).
> It had a fibreglass roof on it, and looked way cool. It is unrestored,
> and owned by a gent in New York. I don't know if it's still
> campaigned or not.
I'm assuming it's not so much "still campaigned" as "will (might?) be
campaigned again"! It has been "out of circulation" for many years, and it
is likely the only surviving Le Mans Spitfire in anything approaching its
original mid-1960s form. Pictures of the car can be seen at the Amicale
Spitfire web site <http://amicale.com/spitfire/indexe.htm>.
Guess I'd better pick up a copy of the magazine!
--Andy
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* Andrew Mace, President and *
* 10/Herald/Vitesse (Sports 6) Consultant *
* Vintage Triumph Register <www.vtr.org> *
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