With all the recent attention given to Alfa, Porsche, and Jaguar sports cars, you’d be excused for forgetting about some of the more accessible British sports cars, like the Triumph Spitfire. With five generations of Spitfire stretching over 18 years, there are plenty of flavors to choose from , starting with the slow and simple Spitfire 4 and finishing with the slow and complicated Spitfire 1500. The Spitfire Mark III is arguably one of the better renditions, retaining the more popular styling of the Mark I-III cars and gaining a proper folding top, a larger 1296cc engine with 8hp more (and presumably a bump in torque), though 7hp of this were lost to emissions regulations by 1969. The instrument panel was no longer center-mounted, moving to a traditional placement in front of the driver. Let’s take a look at this 1969 Triumph Spitfire for sale for $2500 in Yachats, OR.
The body looks pretty decent from this angle, and hopefully it’s not telling that the seller shows no shots of the driver’s side. The car is said to be modified (or is it the Mark IV hardtop that’s modified?), and benefits from new brake calipers, pads, rotors, stainless brake lines, as well as a Weber carburetor and a new alternator. Unfortunately, the wiper linkage is said to be frozen, so hopefully the motor hasn’t burned out.
There’s a small patch of primer under the passenger side tail light, but you were going to go around the whole body with a magnet anyway, right? A contrasting color top is cool, though this is likely the original finish from the donor car, so while black might be an obvious color, how about something more period – gold, maybe, or pale blue? Spoke wheels are not as low-maintenance as steel wheels, but they definitely complete the English sports car image. Speaking of which, thankfully nobody has defaced this car with a trunk rack.
It’s hard to see from this rather far-out shot, but the engine doesn’t appear to have had much recent maintenance – nothing looks new, and the valve cover and air filter cover look rough, like the car has lived outside. Indeed, the windows on the car look a little steamy, like the car’s been left out in the rain – not an unlikely scenario at this time of the year on the Oregon coast.
There’s no better shot of the interior, but here are some more signs of moisture on the gauges. It’s nice to see that all the original equipment remains, down to the spindly little steering wheel with its thin spokes. Hopefully the thin bucket seats are also still there. If you’re taking a weekend by the sea, maybe it’s worth swinging by Yachats and checking this one out.
Tags: british, Feature, spitfire, sports car, triumph
Rusty But Trusty 
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