the LeMans spitfire was modeled to reflect the up-coming GT6, as
far as the hardtop was concerned. it did in fact have the
4-cylinder engine (1196 version), and it's top speed was around
120 MILES/hour. the engineers weren't satisfied with it's
performance untill it could reach that speed. and believe it or
not, it finished with an average speed around 90 mph (not
kilometers).
~hopefully, someone else will back me up on this as i wrote this
from memory. an article on these cars exists in the recent
Rimmer Bros catalog for the spitfire.
--- "Terry L. Thompson" <tlt@digex.net> wrote:
>
> Spitfirers,
> Speedvision had a show with the above mentioned title, on
> their "History of
> Autocross" of what I seem to remember was a
> 1964 race at LeMans in which Standard Triumph unveiled the
> Spitfire coupe.
> 3 of them raced and only one finished (one I believe was taken
> out/wrecked
> by an american driven vehicle).
>
> They kept refering to the car as a Spitfire, but it had a GT6
> hard-top
> body. My question is, were they curtailing the name of the car
> (dropping
> the GT6) or were they actually 4 cylinder engines in the GT6
> body? I also
> recollect that they stated the "Spitfire" that finished
> averaged around 90+
> km per hour during the 24 hour race.
>
> Just curious,
> Terry L. Thompson
> '76 Spit 1500
> Maryland
>
=====
nikolai jaremka
72 spitfire mkIV
east aurora, new york
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