On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Terry L. Thompson wrote:
> They kept refering to the car as a Spitfire, but it had a GT6 hard-top
> body. My question is, were they curtailing the name of the car (dropping
> the GT6) or were they actually 4 cylinder engines in the GT6 body? I also
> recollect that they stated the "Spitfire" that finished averaged around 90+
> km per hour during the 24 hour race.
Terry, they were very much Spitfires. Circa 1963, one of the original
Spitfire prototypes (forget the commission number, but I think it was the
white car registered 4305 VC) was sent off to Michelotti's studios in
Italy, where he added a fastback roof. It all came out very nicely, save
for the fact that the now heavier car wasn't nearly so responsive with the
four-cylinder engine. Eventually and logically, the Triumph six (already
proven to fit in the Herald chassis ala Vitesse) was installed.
Meanwhile, molds were actually made from that prototype for the
glass-fibre fastback roofs of the Spitfire GT Le Mans cars (and also the
works rallye cars). But those cars used a highly-tuned, eight-port-head
version of the 1147 engine called the "70X" (referring to the cubic inch
displacement).
What often leads to the confusion about the ancestry is the fact that
Triumph introduced the GT6 late in 1966, touting the "Le Mans" connection
when, in fact, those works cars never had the six-cylinder engines. Yes,
eventually, there was some largely stillborn experimentation with the six,
but that mostly occured long after the factory had stopped running the
Spitfires. There was the GT6R, for example, along with Kastner's
installation of a GT6 motor in the ex-Macau Spitfire.
Oops, rather long answer to a short question!
--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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