I hate electronic ignition!

MKIII V8 shares car park with famous Spitfire.

We taxed the V8 for 6 months (the only car we own that we have to pay the rent on!) during the 'summer' and used it on and off up until the end of November. Nothing much to report on this year regarding work on the car as it went straight through the MOT after a rear wheel cylinder change, and was subsequently 100% reliable (or 110% as they say on X factor).

That was up until the week before I was due to bring it back into work and put it to bed for the winter. Pulling off the drive at home it suddenly died, and refused to start. I've isolated it to the ignition module in the distributor which I had problems with a couple of years ago. My experience with electronic ignitions of all types is not a happy one, they have proven to be one of the most unreliable areas of my Triumph driving history over the years. The V8 is the last car we own that still relies on the devils work to get a spark to the cylinders. I might investigate swapping the distributor for an earlier points & condenser P6 unit in an effort to improve reliability in the future. Meanwhile it sits in the garage at home in disgrace waiting for me to fix it which might take a while as I don't work on cars at home, ever!

New pictures!

I am indebted to Ted Taylor for sending me a raft of new (new to me) pictures of BYE at the start of, and during the 1970 World Cup Rally.

Thanks Ted, that's all I needed to raise the enthusiasm levels and dust off the welding gear!

Everyday Atlas

Courier and Atlas towards the end of the summer (remember that?).

Since I put the oldest (roadworthy) Herald to bed in September I have gone back to using the Atlas as my everyday transport. All well and good for the first couple of months, but just recently the cold damp mornings are beginning to take there toll on my enthusiasm. Jumping into an ice box at 6am every morning and then suffering the hurricane force drafts, the terminally leaky windscreen seal, and a heater that's about as much use as a fart in a colander is getting me down. Don't get me wrong I still love my Atlas, but me thinks I need something more civilised back on the road during winters worst. Come back the Chicane all is forgiven!

Stafford 2009

TSSC Stafford 50th Aniversary of the Herald 2009

We thought it might be a good idea to get the oldest Herald (on the road!) up and running for this years TSSC Stafford 50 th anniversary of the launch of the Herald event.

Born on the 19th March 1959 and bearing chassis number 11 there can't be many cars earlier than this.

Bearing in mind it hadn't been on the road since the 1980's it needed very little in the way of recommissioning. A complete brake overall, a drivers footwell, clutch hydraulics, and it flew through an MOT. Our aim is to preserve where ever possible, not to simply 'restore' and loose all original reference points. To many cars have had all originality 'restored' out of them, bearing little evidence of how they left Triumph's gates when new.

The drive up to Stafford proved uneventful bar a headlight cowl flying off. Once retrieved from the side of the road we were surprised to find no damage to it what so ever which was a relief bearing in mind how rare long peak cowls are getting.

Since Stafford I continued to drive the 948 every day until the end of the summer, and what a great little car it is to drive to. One of the nicest 948's I've ever had the pleasure of driving (and I've driven a few!), they made these early cars real good.

No, No, No, Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Doctor can you please help? I have this problem you see. Well more of an affliction really. You see I just can't stop myself containing a completely unnatural urge to acquire Standard Atlas's (Atlasi?). My friends think I'm mad, am I mad doctor?

The latest addition to the fleet, thanks Mick (I think!).

Atlas gets the 'works'

I always thought the Atlas looked a little plain and seeing as it's painted in it's original powder blue 'works' rally colour I thought it might look nice in some 'works' sign writing. Some kind soul forwarded me a picture of a van in period with something suitable on the side which we forwarded to the people doing the job for us, I think they did a good job of replicating it.

New Pictures of 6003VC

Yet more trawling through the pile of old classic car magazines brought in from home for shredding revealed the following pictures of 6003 VC's past exploits. Found in the February 1990 edition of Thoroughbred & Classic Car they show 6003 VC going on to to win overall the Historic Car Register's Weston Park event on the RAC stage. As this entry, and result is new to me I shall have to add it to the car's other battle honours further down this page (when I've worked out how to do it!).
That pile of old magazines is finally getting smaller, I'm on my third boot full in the Chicane, and you can get quite a few magazines in a Chicane boot I will tell you!

Gold Seal Spitfire

Browsing through the remnants of my once extensive magazine collection (I have been shredding them!) in the garage at home the other day I found the following from the March 1986 edition of Classic & Sportscar. This confirms my recent correspondence with Julius Thurgood that the car had passed through his hands in the mid eighties.
Coincidently I had a gentleman telephone me last week who had owned the car in the early 70's after it's Gold Seal career ended. More info to follow as and when we get it including some promised new pictures!

As Found

Here's the photos as found...

4 Cylinder Lucas Injection

Well at least the unique 4 cylinder distributor/metering unit pedestal, the 4 cylinder racing metering unit, and the racing injectors anyway.

Tried but not raced on the Le Mans Spitfires, this is where this set originates from. Using a cam operated metering unit as against the more recognisable vacuum operated type, meant instant translation of the drivers throttle input to the race cars fuel demands. Didn't do anything for fuel consumption though, so not useful in road going applications! Very similar to the units used on the Abingdon Mini Cooper rally cars of the late 1960s, and very sought after today! Have spoken to those directly involved with Le Mans Spitfire development at the Triumph and no-one as yet can remember which car was used for the testing. By default I think it must have been one of Bradley's cars, ADU 1B, 2B, 5B, or ERW 412C, but have yet to confirm?

Herald Technical College Chassis

MKI Herald exhibition/show/college rolling chassis.

Recently donated by an ex-Triumph employee who in turn had recently acquired it from the MG Rover headquarters, and training school at Studley Castle in Warwickshire. It's interesting to note that MG Rover had thought it worthwhile to have a training aid on the books that was more at home in 1959! Triumph produced many of these training aids (at least a hundred) for technical colleges, schools, and other institutions, that provided valuable insight into the inner workings of the automobile. This was only possible with a separate chassis car, and this is the reason many of these survived into the 90's. A veritable flood of these came onto the market from the early 90's, right through until recently. Most ended up being used as donors in restoration projects, indeed a couple of partially disassembled ones that went through our hands in the Kipping's days ended up under concourse cars. Our latest find however will not suffer this fate for two things are in it's favour, firstly it's complete, and in good condition, and secondly it's a MKI, and very much rarer than the 'common' MKII college chassis version. Needing only minor cosmetic restoration, it shouldn't take much to get it up and running and driveable again.

Transaxle

This will really test your Triumph trivia!

This is an example of a complete prototype transaxle assembly from the stillborn 1958 Zebu saloon project. The Zebu was a halfway house between the Standard Vanguard and the Triumph 2000 (Barb). Triumph lost their way at this time, and things got rather complicated with many body design changes, and multiple chassis and running gear revisions. At one time in the project a Herald body was hot crossed bun sectioned and stretched to fit the Zebu chassis! Things got so desperate at the end Triumph dropped the whole project and then went off and nearly settled on a Vanguard engined AMC Wrangler (an ugly American saloon of the period. Fortunately sense prevailed and we were given the wonderful Triumph 2000 family.

We are currently restoring the transaxle to display standard incorporating a wheeled display frame so that we can move it around in the museum.

70X Engine Weber Inlet Manifold

This is one of the ultra rare original factory Spitfire Le-Mans/Rally 70X Weber inlet manifolds. It was recently donated by Peter Clarke ex of the Triumph Competition department and instrumental in the building and maintenance of the original 'works' cars.

Peter went on to help build and prepare with Peter Cox the ultra competitive ex-works, ex Stirling Moss/Val Pierre SMART Spitfire ADU 467B, maybe this is where this manifold originates from?

February 08 up-date

What were the chances of finding the other hand to our manifold floating around Coventry 40 odd years after the event? Well I knew it was a long shot to complete the pair of the ultra rare 70X alloy head (the steel head, and SAH head manifolds are different) inlets. Step forward another ex comp shop (experimental) engineer who recently dug one out for us along with a load of steel head inlets, and forged piston sets! We sorted through the spare stuff and it duly went on to e-Bay, making a tidy sum in the process for their owner. Apparently most of it has found it's way to Italy.

Picture from the e-Bay listing of those steel head inlets.

Le Mans Fuel Tanks

At least eleven of the works Spitfires built, ADU 1B through ADU 8B, ADU 467B (may not have had a long range tank, as a 'normal' hardtop car) , AVC 654B, ERW 412C and of course the Macau, all had these endurance long range aluminium petrol tanks fitted.

We have four of the original five we owned (we recently sold a tank to our friend Steve Phillips who is making a replica Macau) here on display in our museum. These should not be confused with the replica tanks we made and sold a few years back, the most famous of which now sits in Mark Fields (Jigsaw Racing) works replica Spitfire.

The ones we have on display are genuine 40 year old original, and show all signs of it, being dented, and corroded, as you might expect for 40 year old aluminium.

So consider this, bearing in mind that ADU 3B, ADU 4B, ADU 5B, ADU 6B, ADU 7B, ADU 8B, and AVC 654B should all have there original tanks still fitted (the Macau lost its original tank in America) that makes seven tanks still fitted to works cars, plus the five we have owned, and one other one we know of locally, and the Macau's (still in the USA?) that makes 14!

OK, so a couple of tanks may have been made as spares, but if you knew that we acquired these tanks fairly locally, and that there exists locally the considerable remains of a factory backed private Spitfire racing effort, still in situ after almost 39 years after the three cars were last campaigned, then it might not surprise you to see an amazing survival rate of 'works' parts.

Watch this space for further developments.

In the meantime please feel free to come along and examine these and other parts of Triumph's Spitfire racing effort.

Macau Head

We have recently been extremely lucky in acquiring the original aluminium works 8 port 70X head that was taken off the Macau by Kas Kastner in 1966. Along with some other original engine components acquired, this should go most of the way to allowing us to return the Macau to it's 1965 specification.

We are indebted to Kas Kastner for his help in tracking down the parts, it turns out they never went very far, having sat unused in California for nearly 40 years!

The cylinder head in particular is in very good condition, and is virtually ready to use, a tribute to very careful storage for all those years.

It now seems unlikely that any of the original works circuit cars will be at Le Mans latter this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Spitfires racing there, a good time to get the Macau up and running in original 4 cylinder form?

Here are some quotes from Kas taken from the various correspondence we have exchanged, they add to the excitement!

Kas : "Are you interested in the Spitfire aluminium 8 port cylinder head with inlet manifolds that I believe is the original fitment for the car (Macau) when I received it from the factory?"

Kas : "That's really great, I am very pleased indeed that you are getting the original parts back home, wonderful !"

Experimental Rotary Throttle

Another important part of Triumph's superb experimental and development history has recently been donated to our museum. This time we are indebted to Mr Peter Clarke formerly of the Triumph competitions and experimental departments.

This is an experimental rotary throttle body, we believe Ray Henderson (head of experimental) may have had a hand in its conception and design, and indeed based on Ray's work Rover later patented the idea.

You can see from one of the pictures that we have set the throttles half open/closed so you get an idea of its operation, simple and uncomplicated, and way ahead in conception.

Stag V8 Lucas Petrol Injection Inlet Manifolds

How rare are these, I have never even seen a picture of these before let alone having seen them in flesh.

Triumph very early on in the Stag development program tried Lucas injection and these are orginal inlet manifolds from that period. Donated by Tony Luxton (ex Triumph experimental) we are indebted to him for saving such rare parts and giving them into the safe keeping of our museum. Now all we need is an eight cylinder metering unit (I know where there is few of those), and a Stag metering unit drive and mounting, any ideas?

5 Speed Gearbox

This is one of the mythical Triumph 5 speed gearboxes, predating the later 77mm 5 speed that appeared in the TR7, Rover SD1, etc.

Looking like a normal Triumph saloon, TR 4-6 alloy gearbox with a bit tacked on the back, this is essentially what it is! Ours is numbered EX5SPD/1 (experimental 5 speed number 1), I know of another in Germany, and there was supposed to be another in a big saloon somewhere up North? Ray Henderson once told me on one of his visits here that 'it wern't nought to do with us' (Triumph)! He later rang me up and appologised, he had spoken to Triumphs chief gearbox guy at the time who had confirmed the project had indeed happened, prompted by the intervention of a certain Mr Kas Kastner. All the ones I have seen or heard of have had saloon input shafts, and have at one time or another been fitted in saloons, not TR's, unless anyone knows differantly? Why didn't they go into production with this instead of the incredibly heavy cast iron case, clunky old 77mm box I will never know?

Econocruise

Cruise control, only fitted to modern luxury motors? We bought a Spitfire4 MkII a couple of years ago that had been fitted in the mid 1970s with this bolt on cruise control kit. The car has been off the road since the very early 1980s so we haven't yet tried it out. Sports cars with cruise control, whatever next?

Dunlop Wheels

Please note. This is simply an old advertising brochure from Dunlop from the 60's that we have scanned in. It does not imply that we stock Dunlop Formula 'D' wheels!

Blue Prints

Recently donated to our museum was something in the region of 200/300 original factory blueprints.

We are indebted to Roy Ford (formally Triumph Experimental) in firstly having the foresight to save these valuable pieces of history from disposal when the Triumph factory was being cleared, and secondly in donating them to our museum.

Detailing the designs of such diverse parts as chassis brackets, trim parts, and wiring looms.

Although in good condition, they will need careful storage, after cataloguing.

Unleaded Petrol Research Courtesy of Esso/Triumph

Nothing New Under The Sun

The following correspondence from our archive between Esso and Triumph shows that the two companies were worried enough about unleaded fuel in 1970 to instigate some comprehensive studies into valve seat recession. Of course Triumphs were to run throughout the 1970's in America on unleaded fuel without problem as they do today.

If nothing else it also proves our advice since unleaded fuel became available in the UK (and elsewhere on this website), use it without modification, you will have no problems. If Esso could thrash a fresh GT6 around a test track at 100mph day after day with negligible recession then you are hardly likely to suffer any. We also have had several of our Triumph's on long term (very, very long term!) test without recession, see the Chicane and 2.5 PI MK1 pages in our museum.

Spitfire Tuning Kits

Amazing what sits around in your drawer?

These original typed and hand written/annotated specification notes for the factory Spitfire4 MkII tuning kits were recently donated by our friend Tony Luxton (ex Triumph experimental engineer). Tony has recently retired from Land Rover where he continued to work in development after moving there when the Triumph closed at Canley. These little gems came to light whilst clearing his drawers out!

Interesting in that it shows part numbers for all the trick bits, but also prices in pounds, shillings and pence, hand written alongside each part.

Triumph only really sold (usually through SAH) Spitfire Interim, and Spitfire Stage II kits to satisfy homologation regulations to justify the racing effort.

These are also if you wish to replicate a Stage II car in that it even list things like choke sizes for the 40 DCOEs, ignition timing, and compression ratios.