With all of the 'how I got my Spitfire' stories, I'm looking at my
experiences in a new light. This is a bit long, but I already snipped out a
bunch of stuff (once I started reminiscing, I couldn't stop<g>)
My first car was a '65 Spitfire, which I bought in '83. I went to the POs
house but he couldn't start it, and I didn't know anything about how to make
it work. I left that day, and he called me a few weeks later with a very
reduced price. I told him that if he could drive it to my house (about 100
miles away), I'd buy it. The next morning, he was at my door with the Spit
at the curb. Being the naive kid that I was (only 17), I paid the guy $400
without going to the car. As soon as he walked away, I went out to drive it
around and saw him drive away in a pickup with a car trailer. When I got
the Spit, it was stone cold. The guy had towed it to a few houses away and
coasted to my house.
My second car was a '78 Spit, which I bought in Alabama in '88. I
actually drove this one before buying it for $1200. Within a month, the
differential froze while I was on leave over a holiday weekend, and I had to
pay a mechanic $900 for him to replace it. After that, I was transferred to
Virginia, loaded my duffel bags on the luggage rack, and took a long road
trip. A couple of months after that, one of the flywheel bolts sheered off.
Of course, I threw away all common sense, listened to my army buddies, and
bought a replacement engine. We removed the old engine and installed the
new one in the parking lot of the barracks. I didn't have an engine hoist,
so we used some rope and 4 soldiers. The engine ran at the junk yard, but
wouldn't turn over in the car, so it sat for a few months until I was
transferred out again. I left the car at the gas station on Ft.Eustis.
(Maybe one of you bought it at the abandoned car auction and now owns it?)
I took a completely different approach to my current Spitfire. I was
helping a friend tow a TR6 home and we were stopped by another guy driving a
TR6. He asked us all kinds of questions about the TR6 I was towing, and the
conversation turned to Spitfires. He told me that he has a junk yard with
several Spitfires in various states of decay, and I went out to take a look.
I wanted a MkI or MkII, but all he had were old body shells and frames.
After a few trips to his yard, I decided that I wanted a true basket case
and that I'd rebuild it. I picked out a white '68 with a good frame and
most of the sheet metal intact. I paid for it by doing some electrical work
for his shop and he delivered it a few days later. You can see pictures of
it on my web site, but it was just a big pile of potential. To make a long
story short, I traded more work a his shop for the drivetrain ('74 engine)
and seats, rebuilt the engine, removed the body, stripped and repainted the
frame, welded floor panels and seat frames, and basically pieced everything
together. I picked up a parts car ('66) from a police auction (it was
evidence in an arson case...the PO set the whole thing on fire), and used
the '66 bonnet. Right now, the car is sitting in my garage awaiting a
tranny transplant (the current tranny doesn't shift into 1st or 3rd), some
more body work, and repainting. I am going to paint it BRG in a few years
(have to save up to have it done professionally). In the meantime, I'm
thinking of painting it in the RAF camouflage scheme. Right now, I've sunk
close to $400 into the car (including parts for the trades), and a few
hundred hours of my time, but I have my Spitfire. There's a tremendous
amount of satisfaction that comes with driving down the street knowing that
there aren't two pieces of metal on the car that I didn't put together
myself.
Mike Welch
'68 +/- Spitfire MkIII
'60 Jaguar MkII
http://home.turbopower.com/~mikew
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