I loved this car and it was one car that I kept in my ownership for 13 years before I sold it on. It originally came with a Triumph 1300cc engine, which I ditched for a 2000cc Fiat Twin-cam Mirafiori engine, with a five-speed box to-boot. A straight swop was never going to be on the cards, but I was determined to do it and get it running. The engine was put in and out many times and every time I took it out, a bit more of the chassis or the fins on the gearbox were ground off with a grinder. I wanted the engine as far back as possible, so that it looked and sat like it was made to fit the little Spitfire. The gearbox was the tight bit with it sitting low and snug between the chassis rails. I was determined not to have to revise the interior and wanted everything looking like it was original. So the gearbox had to sit just right to get the gear-stick to stick out in the right place. Getting the gear-stick right determined where the engine would sit and a little bit of cutting of the bulkhead was needed to get the engine in as well. Once I was happy with where it was going to sit, engine and gearbox mounts were made up first, so it could sit on its rubbers and then everything else could be built and made to fit around it all. The radiator came out of a Volvo 344 and most other bits were hand-made to suit. Like the clutch cable was a fiat one and I made a bracket to fit to the cable and pedal? The original Triumph one was of a hydraulic type and would have been no-use at all. One of the biggest problems was the prop shaft mount. The fiat item was a big rubber doughnut type and was too big to go between the chassis rails. So I had the end of the prop change to a common a garden Ford one and a ford mount flange was found to mount it too. Now then, I know what you’re thinking and NO the splines on the drive shaft in the gearbox are not the same as the Fiat ones. I cut the Ford flange and the Fiat one and machined them both down to fit each other nice and snug and welded the two together. This gave me a Ford fitting flange end with Fiat splines for the gearbox end. The Prop-Shaft was made at RECO-PROP in Luton once I had made sure I knew what length was needed.

So this is where it all started

With A Bare Chassis

The chassis was stripped of its old paint and re-painted with some old left-overs from various paint jobs I had done in the past. Once mixed, it looked a bit pink like, but this was only used as an under-coat, as the main colour was going to be blue.

Here's the chassis with the body back on and all painted blue already.

Suspension also back on. However, this was to be changed at a later date.

 Everything that went back on was "Shot-Blasted" and "Painted" before it went back on.

This motor just had to look right and clean.

More content coming soon to this space.

Sign my Guestbook!
Read my Guestbook!