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May 17, 2022 · For decades, I suppressed the urge to defect to the other side and stuck with my beloved MGs, but the lure of that sexy Spitfire stuck in my craw. “Maybe someday,” I thought. Well, someday came in February 2018. An ad on Craigslist revealed a late-1970 Spitfire Mk3 worth considering, less than an hour south of me over the state line. The ...
Nov 5, 2018 · 5 Nov 2018. The Triumph Spitfire was launched in 1962, and aimed to compete with the Austin-Healey Sprite, but in the same year another rival also surfaced – the MGB. Thanks to its separate ...
- 1493cc, in-line four-cylinder OHV
- 71bhp @ 5500rpm
- Triumph Spitfire 1500
- 82lb ft @ 3000rpm
The Triumph Spitfire is a British sports car manufactured over five production iterations between 1962 and 1980. Styled for Standard - Triumph in 1957 by Italian designer Giovanni Michelotti, the Spitfire was introduced at the London Motor Show in 1962. [5] It was manufactured at the Standard-Triumph Canley works, with approximately 315,000 ...
- Development of The Spitfire
- Leyland Rescue and Full Production
- “A Travelling Motor-Race”
- Keeping Ahead of The Spridgets
- New Look and More Power
- British Leyland, and A New Rear End
- The Spitfire 1500
- The End of The Road
The Spitfire’s journey from drawing board to showroom was long and tortuous, and Project Bombwould almost certainly have failed to ignite had Leyland not taken over the ailing Standard-Triumph company in December 1960. Midway through the following year, Triumph’s new chief executive Stanley Markland was walking through the factory with technical di...
That could have been the end of that, but for the intervention of Leyland, hitherto a manufacturer of lorries and busses, as well as the Cromwell and Centurion tanks, and especially Stanley Markland. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the new boss, Webster lit the fuse to the Bomb, with the final car little changed from the prototype and a mildly tuned, t...
Motor Sportmagazine was very taken by the “attractively-styled Spitfire 4, which attracts a very fair share of admiring glances”, describing it as “a very welcome addition to the ranks of the long-neglected ‘1100’ sports cars”. “The Michelotti-styled body, flat and shapely, is not only amongst the most pleasing of present-day small sports cars but ...
By 1964, the Sprite and Midget had acquired wind-up windows, external handles and locks, and a proper bootlid – all of which the Spitfire had all along, of course. But Triumph weren’t resting on their laurels, and responded with a beefed-up mark 2, with more power, a restyled interior and some minor changes to the exterior trim. Most significantly,...
With the Spridgets gaining more power in 1966, Triumph again responded with the much-improved mark 3 the following year, with a new look to the front end and the engine bored out to 1296cc, providing a healthy 75bhp. The most obvious exterior change was the “bone in the mouth” front bumper, raised to comply with American safety regulations, while t...
In January, 1968, Leyland Motors – the owners of Triumph-Standard – took over British Motor Holdings, which not only included Jaguar and Daimler but also Austin, Morris and MG. The Spitfire was still competing head-on with the Sprite and Midget, but all three cars were now owned by the same company, now called British Leyland. But with all three st...
The final iteration of the Spitfire arrived in December 1974 in the shape of the 1500, although the 1493cc engine had been introduced to the US a year earlier (with a single Zenith-Stromberg carb) in a bid to boost performance in the face of falling power output to meet emissions regulations. Even then, the US version was restricted to just 57bhp, ...
The Spitfire changed little for the remaining years of its life, with only detail tweaks like cloth upholstery, column stalks from a TR7, an electric screen washer, and hazard flashers marking the passage of time. British Leyland had planned to phase the car out in 1982, but ever-stricter emissions regulations in California proved too much for the ...
This Spitfire is now offered in Piedmont, South Carolina, by the seller on behalf of the current owner, a licensed retail dealer in Missouri, with the aforementioned service records and a clean Georgia title. The Spitfire was introduced in 1962 with production running through 1980, and the Mk III was offered between 1967 and 1970.
This 1970 Triumph Spitfire Mk III was acquired by the seller in 2008 and was subsequently fitted with the chassis and running gear from a 1969 Triumph GT6+. The 2.0-liter inline-six was reportedly rebuilt prior to installation and is paired with a four-speed manual transmission.
This 1970 Triumph Spitfire Mk III is powered by a 1,296cc inline-four mated to a replacement four-speed manual transmission with J-type overdrive. The car was acquired by the seller in 2013 and subsequently underwent a refurbishment that included a repaint in green as well as a retrimmed interior.
