Everyday Modifications for Your Triumph E-Book

Iain Ayre

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 273

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The books in the Everyday Modifications series are designed to guide classic car owners through the workshop skills needed to make their vehicles easier to use and enjoy. This book is concerned with improving the 4-cylinder Spitfire and Herald, and the 6-cylinder Vitesse and GT6, with engines ranging in size from 948cc to 1998cc. Classic car author and journalist Iain Ayre gives his hands-on advice on maintaining and modifying the Triumph Herald/Vitesse and Spitfire/GT6, covering both keeping them going and either subtly or dramatically improving them, with additional rescue options offered for Triumphs deemed economically terminal. The advice, based on decades of restoration and racing, covers improvements in power, handling, comfort and safety; period design faults isolated and remedied; electrics demystified, modernizing options discussed; six case studies; radical - as well as mild - modification options discussed. Superbly illustrated with over 250 colour photographs including rare period shots.

Leseprobe

First published in 2016 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

© Iain Ayre 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 176 5

contents

Introduction

1    Buying the Right Triumph: Value for Money

2    Masterclasses

3    Triumph Engines

4    Transmission

5    Suspension and Steering

6    Brakes

7    Wheels and Tyres

8    Structure and Interior

9    Electrics

10  Maintaining Performance

11  Case Studies

Index

introduction

‘Straight from the horse’s mouth’ is an excellent adage suggesting where you would find good advice, and in this book it is fulfilled on three counts: this is because here we have an author who owned a good few Triumphs back when they were still fairly current; a technical consultant who has run a Triumph restoration business for decades; and input from a designer who worked at one of the prime developers of tuning accessories for Triumphs.

Iain Ayre has been driving and writing books and articles about Triumphs, MGs, Jaguars, TVRs and other British classics for longer than he cares to remember: hence the scarf made of event lanyards.

Randy Zoller has been racing, restoring and repairing Triumphs, Healeys, Morgans, TVRs and other British classics for longer than he cares to remember as well. Check him out at www.britishheritagemotorsports.com.

Iain’s default/favourite motor car during the 1970s was the Triumph Vitesse, alternating between convertible and saloon versions. This was one of the better examples.

Many of the Triumphs photographed for this book are left-hand drive. This is because I live in the Pacific Northwest, which was a significant export market for Triumph and MG. Much of the research for the book also took place at a Triumph restoration shop, in San Diego, California. Something like half of all Spitfire production went to North America, and many of them are still there. On the Vancouver Craigslist, a free advertising site, on a random day in June 2015, there were twenty-nine Triumphs for sale.

My Triumphs have comprised an early Herald convertible with a cardboard dash; a Herald estate with crumbling outriggers on which a rear trailing arm came adrift under way, which was even more of a surprise than a previous swing-arm-related rear-wheel jack-up; a Vitesse Six convertible, and a couple of Vitesse saloons; two Spitfires that were bought at December prices, driven through the winter at college to save money, then painted and sold in June to fund long holidays in France; a late-model GT6; and finally a Midge, which is a 1930s-style kit car intended for a Herald or a square-tube replacement Herald chassis, and which in my case was the first 6-cylinder example. This was based on my mother’s crumbling Vitesse, which she crashed, and which was transformed into a Midge and given back to her: she drove it with style and panache until her eighties.

I have nearly killed myself swerving in a Herald convertible with swing axles; I have enjoyed the relative comfort of sitting on the front tyre of a Vitesse in weekend sunshine while working on its engine, in marked contrast with the back pain or grovelling involved in fixing lesser cars; and I have match-ported and polished six intake tracts while sorting out some hardened valve seats for the Midge. In recent years I have enjoyed writing regularly for Triumph World magazine, which is an excellent Triumph resource with a knowledgeable and hands-on Triumphowning editor, has intriguing and inspiring stories, and a set of very useful advertisements that tell you exactly where all the key Triumph spares are to be found.

Triumphs have been fun to own, and I recommend them.

FOCUS

This book is concerned with improving the 4-cylinder Spitfire and Herald, and the 6-cylinder Vitesse and GT6, with engines ranging in size from 948cc to 1998cc. The larger Triumph engines found in the TR6 and the Triumph 2500 were not fitted to the smaller Triumphs, and used more substantial gearboxes and differentials. The drivetrains fitted to the smaller Triumphs were marginal when fitted to 2-litre engines, and would not survive long behind a 2500cc engine. However, the book does include information on the engines and gearboxes out of the TR6, which can be used in the smaller Triumphs to great effect.

Randy Zoller has run the British Heritage Motorsports (.com) restoration and vintageracing workshop in San Diego for decades: he is an automotive archaeologist as well as a musician and a master mechanic.

Triumphs remain among the world’s favourite reasonable-budget classics, not least because of spares availability and their robust chassis as well as their general charm and good looks.

HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

The Triumph story starts in 1886 with bicycles, and then motorcycles in 1902. The first cars appeared in 1923 in the form of the 10/20, built to a design by Lea-Francis. The Super 7 was next, selling well from 1927 to 1934, but rather than competing for the mass market with Austin and Ford, Triumph changed direction towards making expensive cars such as the Southern Cross and the Gloria, and created just three straight-8-engined Dolomites, inspired by the Alfa Romeo 8C. The 1930s were hard times, and Triumph ran into financial trouble, first selling the motorcycle division, and then going into liquidation in 1939. The company was bought out of bankruptcy and revived, but the factory was flattened during the war.

The Standard Motor Company’s flamboyant Captain John Black then fell out with William Lyons, and bought what little was left of Triumph, mostly the name, with the idea of building a more prestigious brand than Standard to compete against what was then SS, which became SS Jaguar, and then just Jaguar when the letters SS acquired unfortunate Nazi connotations.

The Standard Motor Company had started up in 1903 in Coventry, and after rather less of a bucking-bronco ride through the 1920s than Triumph, settled down in the 1930s to producing a respectable number of Standard 9s and 10s, worthy but dull low-to-medium-budget family cars.

The 1948 Vanguard was the first properly post-war British car design, and was very American in its styling, although it was really too stubby to look as good as its contemporary period American designs, which have the physical length to resolve those dramatic lines properly. Standard continued to develop along the same lines, with mostly budget cars; in 1953 they offered the cheapest four-door car in Britain. And also in the same year the Triumph name came back to life with the TR2.

The Triumph name goes back a long way. This 1950 Renown in aluminium resembled the post-war Bentleys, giving an indication of the target audience.

The early 1950s Mayflower rather misfired: it was an expensive upmarket small car, a new concept that hadn’t really previously existed, and it went a bit wild on the ‘Razor-Edge’ styling. Like Marmite, it was either loved or loathed.

The Standard name was now associated with cheapness, but the Triumph name still carried a premium, so the Standard name was eased out and dropped. We can see the same thing happening now with BMW: their name and brand is losing its status with the financially successful mass sales of a quarter-million units annually, and people will eventually realize that when everyone has a BMW, it’s no longer a premium product. The company is therefore now in the Ford Cortina/Sierra market, and other higherclass brand names will be bought in to replace the BMW brand – and one of the names BMW has bought for this marketing process is Triumph.

THE HERALD ERA

The Herald story starts in 1959 when Standard was selling the Standard 8 and 10, powered by an 803cc and 948cc 4-cylinder engine, respectively. The internal name for the upcoming Herald project was Zobo, but Standard Triumph’s flag-related naming theme was retained with the more upmarket Triumph brand name, and thus the Herald was christened. The name also referred to managing director Alec Dick’s boat.

Small Standards tended to be dumpy and dull, but at least had a modern monocoque: the Herald retreated to an old-fashioned separate chassis that was used for all its descendants and derivatives, although the body design was dramatically modern, the work of Italian Giovanni Michelotti.

The Herald remains an excellent starter classic, available in fine condition for a few thousand pounds, and in rescuable condition for a few hundred. Pretty coachwork, four seats, cheap repairs, 40mpg (7ltr/100km) fuel economy: a bargain.

The adoption of a separate chassis was not really by choice, but was the result of Standard’s body supplier Fisher no longer being helpful, having been bought by competitor BMC. Sidestepping big, expensive and capitalintensive monocoque structures and breaking down the manufacture of the Herald into smaller and more manageable chunks made a good deal of sense. Tooling up for a new car with a separate chassis was theoretically both cheaper and faster, and the Mini and the Anglia were both a potential threat.

The separate chassis also allowed great flexibility in terms of the model range. Heralds and Vitesses have completely detachable and largely interchangeable body tubs, roofs and front ends, which allowed for the swift development and availability of coupé, convertible and van versions, and which is why you see the occasional Vitesse estate: these may not have existed officially, but it was easy enough to collect and assemble one.

You can also mix and match Spitfires and GT6s to some extent, and for some, the ultimate small Triumph is the GT6fire, or Spit 6 – a GT6 in which the coupé body is replaced with a convertible Spitfire tub, but retains the 6-cylinder mechanics and the power-bulged bonnet.

The separate chassis also provides excellent benefits for you and me as enthusiasts and weekend mechanics – if you have a good chassis but a bad body or vice versa, you can find more spares of each, and mix and match to achieve a solid car for a sensible price, although identity complications may arise.

The pure luxury of the huge flip front is also only possible with a separate chassis, as monocoques use the front wings as stressed members, which makes the bodywork harder to repair and the engines harder to work on. Sitting on the wheel of a Herald-descendant Triumph while fixing the engine is a definite bonus – although you must never sit on an uninflated tyre: it can sag, and the treads then violently pinch delicate flesh like twenty mole-grips. This is a mistake you will only make once.

The origins of the Herald family’s suspension are a good story. Triumph’s Harry Webster was making good progress on the future Herald mechanicals, with transverse leaf springs and independent suspension planned at both ends, and rack steering. Somebody decided that matching the astonishingly tight turning circle of a London taxi would be a brilliant idea. Nobody seems to have asked if the customers were likely to want this, or even questioned whether it was a good idea, but the front axle was redesigned with double wishbones to allow the car to turn on the proverbial and contemporary sixpence. Anybody still using this facility on fifty-year-old trunnions had better keep them well oiled, though.

As it happens, the Herald family’s front suspension thus ended up as notably good as its rear suspension is bad. Rear-axle jack-up on hard cornering has probably scared as many enthusiastic Triumph drivers as the careless use of London taxis’ amazing turning circle has hospitalized motorcycle dispatch riders.

The origins of the body are also a good story. Michelotti had proposed to design and prototype a new body in three months on a sale-or-return basis, for which Triumph would pay nothing if they didn’t like it.Webster grabbed at this, although as the three months dragged on somewhat beyond the original deadline, he had to physically drive to Italy and to Michelotti’s house, stand over his shoulder and encourage him personally. The end of 1957 saw the first prototype, and it was dramatic and pretty enough to invigorate the whole company. Italians seem to be genetically unable to design anything ugly, apart from the obese SUV version of the new Fiat 500. Mass-produced British cars in 1957 tended to have the look of a plum pudding with portholes, so the sharp lines, the tailfins, the slim pillars and the elegant glasshouse of the Herald must have been genuinely exciting.

The Herald was finally launched in 1959. The Mini and Anglia were supposed to have been leapfrogged and overtaken by the theoretically speedy development offered by the separate Triumph chassis, but assorted delays meant that the Herald appeared more or less concurrently with them, rather than showing up first and stealing their thunder.

Build quality was poor, as the bitty assembly method encouraged errors to creep in, and the Herald was also relatively expensive – it was only really saved by its sharp and attractive Italian lines. The dangerous rear suspension wasn’t too much of a problem, as the original 948cc engine wasn’t fast enough to encourage drivers to get into trouble.

In 1960, Standard Triumph was in deep financial trouble, with the Standard-branded cars not doing well and a glut of unsold TR3As, and the company was ripe for a takeover by British Leyland, which duly took place.

The Herald was perceived to have a future, although the Standard brand models just evaporated, and the inherited Standard 948cc 34.5bhp engine was enlarged to 1147cc and 39bhp in 1961. This was a tricky process, as the cylinder block was physically small and there was no chance of any funding for a completely new engine. The extra capacity was achieved by offset-boring the cylinders, which usefully improved the efficiency and torque numbers at a very reasonable cost. Offset-boring is currently used by amateur Mini enthusiasts to enlarge 1275cc Mini engines to 1430cc, so it really does cost very little compared to developing a new engine.

The process of expanding with cheaply developed new models based on the same substructure began to unfold. The estate version of the Herald appeared in 1961, essentially just requiring the design and construction of a new tailgate, roof, floor and a folding rear seat. The Courier van followed in 1962, requiring not much more than the replacement of the rear side windows with steel panels and the deletion of some creature comforts. It was expensive for a van, and didn’t sell very well.

The rare and rather pointless 948cc coupé, which really just had a less convenient steel top with no rear passenger headroom and poor rear three-quarter visibility, lived for only a few years, but its rarity now makes it desirable.

The 12/50 offered better trim and more power at 51bhp, with disc brakes and a Webasto sunroof, and the standard 1147cc engine in the standard 1200 model was improved to 48bhp.

The 13/60 refreshed the Herald range in 1967, with the engine enlarged to 1296cc and power increased to 61bhp, and with a much more modern bonnet derived from the Vitesse but featuring only two headlamps. This blended seamlessly with the rest of the body whether in convertible, saloon or estate form. The last Heralds were made in 1971.

THE VITESSE

For the Vitesse, back we go to 1962, and the Vanguardsourced, 2-litre, straight-six engine that had been achieved by extending the 803cc casting by two cylinders was sleeved down to 1596cc and fitted to a strengthened Herald chassis with a new twin-headlamp front end. This was christened the Vitesse – French for ‘speed’ – after the 1934–36 Triumph Gloria Vitesse. The gearbox and differential were uprated, but not by much, and an overdrive was an option. The swing-axle rear suspension was not improved, sadly. The interior featured better seats and more woodwork, and the car sold well. Performance for a four-seater with reasonable fuel economy was pretty good, and the exhaust note from the revvy short-stroke straight-six was, and remains, delicious.

The Vitesse 2-litre followed in 1966, with 1998cc, 95bhp, 100mph (160km/h), further detail transmission improvements, fatter wheels and the same swinging rear axle. The years 1968 to 1971 saw the final iteration of the Vitesse, with 104bhp, detailed visual updates and finally an improvement to the rear axle with wishbones and Rotoflex drive couplings. The rear suspension had now been upgraded to ‘not too bad’.

The Vitesse is essentially a Herald with a 6-cylinder engine and some barely adequate beefing up of the running gear. The earlier 1600cc engine loves to rev, and issues pure music from its pea-shooter tailpipe.

If you’re restoring and improving a Triumph, why not use a modern colour? This Spit was painted by a graphic designer, and the colour has worked very well indeed.

THE SPITFIRE

With the MG/Austin Healey Spridget already selling well, the obvious clever move for BL was to continue selling two sports cars that would compete head-to-head with each other – so that’s what they did. The Spitfire was built in various forms between 1962 and 1981, paralleling and competing with the Midget from 1961 to 1980, after which the British sports-car market was presented to Mazda.

The Spitfire wasn’t quite as easy a conversion for the Herald chassis as coupés or estates, but essentially the side body outriggers were replaced with shorter versions, a few inches were cut out of the centre, and the front crossbeam was changed. The car’s sills became a structural member, unlike the other Herald-based saloons.

The engine was a modified 1200, with an extra carb and 63bhp, and the very good Herald steering and front suspension were retained as well as the dodgy rear suspension, which was less forgivable on a sports car than on a saloon.

The Spitfire remains ubiquitous and easily and cheaply available, and is still as much fun to drive as it was in 1962. Again, the separate chassis makes it very repairable, and parts are cheap and plentiful.

The Triumph was upmarket from the MG, with windup windows and an optional steel hardtop, and before long, wood veneers appeared in the cockpit. The Mk II of 1965 offered 67bhp, better seats, carpets rather than mats, and a very useful 38mpg (7.4ltr/100km). The Mk III of 1967 had a quite different look, with the raised ‘bone in teeth’ bumpers that were required for US sales. Some prefer the earlier look, but a lot of people like the higher bumper just as well. The Mk III also featured what has turned out to be the enthusiasts’ favourite Spitfire engine, the 1296cc with 75bhp.

In 1970 the Mk IV experienced the downhill slide of power numbers as emissions regulations strangled performance, but there was a successful modernization of the rear end with a Karmann-styled chopped-off tail, bearing a strong design connection to Karmann’s transformation of the TR4 into the TR6. The car’s styling was definitely not ruined, and both early and later Spitfires look good. The visible welded front-wing seams with their trim also disappeared and gave way to smooth, more modern wing tops, and the interior was given several upgrades including the relocation of the clocks in front of the driver, which makes more sense even though it requires different RHD and LHD dashboards and wiring looms. Importantly, the rear suspension was improved in the Mk IV of November 1970, with more negative camber and a wider track, and there was a sharply styled factory hardtop available that looked very nice indeed. The Mk IV is many people’s favourite Spit.

The Spitfire 1500 of 1974 received a 1493cc engine shared with the MG Midget. It only had 53bhp, powering a car that now weighed 1,900lb (860kg) as compared to the Spitfire’s original 1,600lb (725kg), but it did provide some useful torque. Some would say it’s not really a sports-car engine, and it is true that it doesn’t like to rev. It would be safe to say that if you like charging about a bit, you’d probably enjoy the 1300, and if you like touring and cruising, the 1500 would be more likely to suit you.

THE GT6

The 1966 GT6 started off as the GT4, a proposed fastback version of the Spitfire. Designed again by Giovanni Michelotti, it was very pretty, but the added weight of the long steel roof and glasshouse made the performance with the 1147cc engine too pathetic, so it was shelved until the aerodynamics of the fastback proved successful in racing and reinvigorated interest in the concept. At this point the 6-cylinder engine shared with the Vitesse was fitted, and thus the GT6 was born in 1966. The engine wouldn’t fit under the Spitfire bonnet, hence the charismatic power bulge. It must be one of very few genuine automotive power bulges, as it is not just cosmetic: the Spitfire bonnet won’t clear the rocker cover of the straight six. The GT6 was fast, which made rear suspension development urgent, and in 1968 lower wishbones were added, which helped to sort it out. The GT6 Mk III in 1970 shared the Rotoflex couplings and geometry improvements of the Mk IV Spitfire, and charged on until 1973.

The extra bodyweight and tailgate that had required the fitting of the bigger engine was at the back, and balanced the additional forward weight of the extra cast-iron cylinders of the six, so the handling of the GT6 is not bad at all. My own 1972 example was regularly given some proper exercise, and overall it behaved well when pushed, apart from blowing a head gasket.

The GT6 is a Spitfire with a straight six and a very pretty coupé body. The extra weight balances the heavy engine very nicely, making an overdrive-equipped GT6 an excellent sports tourer.

SPECIALS AND KIT CARS

The combination of box sections, rudimentary if any rustproofing, acid rain, road salt and a long history have meant that Triumph Heralds and their derivatives have crumbled enthusiastically. However, the main chassis lasts longer than the bodywork and was used under many kit cars, which remain available for very reasonable prices. The most numerous are Burlington, Moss, Spartan and Midge. The Midge remains available from the Midge Owners’ and Builders’ Club and is built from plans in plywood, so if you end up with a Triumph body that’s beyond repair but still has a good chassis and mechanicals, you can reclaim it as a 1930s-style open sports car. It’s fun to drive these, not least because they delight the general public and cost very little.

The Triumph badge has been seen on some of the world’s most stylish and best-loved popular cars. It is now owned by BMW.

BEYOND EVERYDAY MODIFICATIONS

If you are enthused by this book or simply by the prospect of owning and improving a nice little sports car, and find you enjoy the process of making a small Triumph go faster and handle better, you might want to go further.

The stories I write for Triumph World magazine tend to focus on the unusual, because there are already plenty of easily available and beautifully restored cars within easy reach of its editor.

The case studies chapter at the end of the book features a few relatively sensibly upgraded Triumphs, and the odd crazy one as well.

The next step after having a GT6 is probably a TR6. The author has not yet bought his TR6, but has driven several and can feel the magnetic pull of its crisp lines and crisper exhaust note. This applies even more if they’re creatively modified: the author was well impressed by this cheeky 5-litre V8 TR6 that he reviewed for Triumph World magazine.

Spitfire bonnet badge for the American market only – it would have looked inappropriate in the UK to have used an RAF roundel to connect a little 1147cc sports car directly to the machines that won the Battle of Britain. BMW now owns both the Triumph and presumably the Spitfire names – so will they have the nerve to use it?

1

buying the right Triumph: value for money

You have to be crystal clear about the reasons why you want a small Triumph. If you would enjoy getting involved in restoration or pottering, you can be much more flexible when looking for a car. If you have a MIG welder and a garage and would enjoy cutting out rusty panels and making and welding in new ones, then by all means buy and rescue a rusty car. However, if you just want to own and drive a Triumph, only buy the best. The general rule about buying the best one you can find is critical with these cars, because it could cost three or four times the value of a good finished car to restore a bad one.

SAVE MONEY – BUY A ZOBO OR A BOMB

Heralds, which were originally codenamed Zobo, are the least expensive of the flip-front Triumphs. If, again, you are looking for a hands-on hobby project car that needs work, they are available for well under £1,000. Between £1,000 and £2,000 should get you a running and fairly solid but scruffy run-of-the-mill saloon with an MOT. Insist on an MOT before buying, by the way, unless the price is at scrap level.

From £3,000 to £4,000 will get you a nice saloon and into the convertible arena, possibly an older restoration, and also into some of the rarer models that will appreciate more. On a random winter Internet surf, we find a 1960 948cc saloon in nice condition for £4,500, and £2,750 gets a 1966 estate, which would be a very useful vehicle: if you didn’t need to go anywhere far or fast, you could use that as a very economical daily car.

£6,000 gets us into buying a car from a dealer. At this level you’re looking for no rust at all, and those on offer will mostly be convertibles. If you pay something like £8,000 for a Herald, you’re going to get a fresh restoration and almost a new car – and somebody will have lost quite a lot of money, because it will have cost three times that much to carry out a half-decent restoration. But often, the labour doesn’t come into the calculation because it would have been a hobby project. You don’t really clock the hours of labour involved when you go skiing or sailing, because you expect to pay for hobbies, not to be paid for doing them. Quite of lot of hobby restorers just want to get rid of a freshly finished car for enough money to get on with the next one. Like a jigsaw, it’s of no interest when it’s finished.

A Spitfire 1500 offers very good value for money. This particular example had just been expensively restored and was on sale for $7,000 Canadian – around £3,500. Tempting, as it was pretty well perfect.

Moving up a class to Vitesses, a tempting example at the time of writing was £2,500 for a scruffy red Mk II with overdrive, wire wheels and a sunroof – though that rather scruffy-looking drivable project would probably be a temptation best resisted unless it was very solid. At the £4,000 to £6,000 level you’re looking at fairly good Vitesses. The premium for a convertible seems less strong than with Heralds, and the engine size and date doesn’t seem to matter too much. The 2000cc engine is torquier, but the earlier 1600cc is revvier and sweeter. Two concours Vitesses were on offer for £11,000 and an optimistic £20,000. Paying something between £8,000 and £12,000 for a virtually new Vitesse could make sense, because you certainly couldn’t have one restored for that – although if you supplied the labour yourself for the fun of it, you could probably home-restore a Vitesse to a good level for £10,000.

Spitfires were originally known by the codename Bomb, and are plentiful and cheap. The later ones are generally even cheaper. The 1500cc engine shared with the MG Midget provides useful touring torque, but the favourite engine among the Spitfirati is the 1300.

For just a few hundred pounds we’re looking at viable restoration projects with holes in the floors, and if you’re not keen on welding, many abandoned restoration projects are sold very cheaply at the magic 90 per cent level, with all the structural rust already repaired. Cars in pieces are worth very little. People do the big and difficult bits, and they – or their wives – get totally sick of the interminable boring last details and just give up, passing on a bargain to you or me. A few months of reassembly and a paint job, and we’re driving a very nice car.

The least favourite Spitfire among the cognoscenti is the later 1500, which is heavier, slower-revving and more modern. Try various models and engine sizes before deciding on your chosen period.

Spitfire Dick is in his nineties and still breaks up Spitfires as a paying hobby. He collected enough good parts to win concours prizes with his assembled parts collections.

‘Been standing for while, runs, £1095 ONO’ is also worth a look and can probably be had for £500 worth of waved twenties. (Carry £20 notes rather than fifties, as they make a more impressive wad.)

Between £2,000 and £3,000 gets us a reasonable and drivable Spit, and above £4,000 they start getting nicer. Above £5,000 and we’re getting older restorations, new paint, new engines and some of the more interesting cars: a 1969 1300 with 70,000 miles (112,000km) and a full history could be a nice buy at £5,000. We also have the option of buying from the trade. This means paying over the odds, but traders don’t generally bother buying in rubbish, and with the small claims court as an option for back-up, you can get faults sorted out. Classic car traders are also more likely to be reasonably honest than mainstream second-hand car types.

There are also intriguing buys about, if you’re patient and quick – how about £2,200 for a 1976 Spit with a Dolomite 1850 engine, overdrive gearbox and GT6 bonnet? That would go like stink until the head gasket blew.

On the subject of the GT6, this is the top of the small Triumph class. They are best treated as tourers than sports cars, though – the engine is heavy and too far forwards in a light car, and the handling on early ones is not up to the amount of power available. They’re exquisitely pretty, and as in the E-Type, the coupé GT6 version of the Michelotti design is prettier than the convertible Spitfire, although there’s nothing wrong with the lines of a Spitfire. The GT6 was often referred to as the ‘poor man’s E-type’, and there’s truth in that. Their desirability means they tend to start at £6,000 for something fairly good, rising to £9,000 and above for restorations or survivors: a 48,000-mile (77,000km) 1967 Mk I with no welding and its original paint sounds fairly priced at £11,500 – although with that one, you’d really have to tolerate the original and periodcorrect rear suspension, rather than sort it out.

Triumph-based kit cars offer some good deals and some good fun. The most frequently available ones are Gentries, which are replicas of the early 1950s MG TF. They’re sometimes built on a Triumph chassis and sometimes on a custom chassis, which will be made of girders. They tend to sell for between £3,000 and £5,000 if functional, and a small fraction of that if unfinished. If buying an unfinished one, make sure that it uses an original Triumph chassis with a valid registration as a Gentry, or has been registered as a Gentry with a new chassis, or you’ll have to go through a difficult, silly and expensive (£500) government test.

There are also the plan-built, plywood-bodied Burlingtons and JC Midges, which look more like the 1930s period than the 1950s. I write for Kitcar magazine, and I am the madman who built the first 6-cylinder, 2-litre, Vitesse-based Midge. After much of the usual hassle, the Vitesse rear axle was changed for a live axle from a Dolomite, on a custom linkage with a Panhard rod. You can do that on a kit car, although it would be a bit tricky on a Triumph body and chassis. It’s certainly out of the purlieu of everyday modifications.

Burlingtons and Midges are cheaper than Gentries because they’re more free-form in concept, and many have proportions that look grotesque. However, they can all be aesthetically saved with more plywood and a set of bolt-on hubs and 18in wire wheels.

ORIGINALITY