As someone who detests any day with a temperature above 75 degrees, the cooler weather here in October suits me perfectly. That and the goldening sunshine, football, leaves changing color, hockey starting up and people unloading their old cars for a song before they're forced to store them for the winter, it doesn't get much better than this time of the year. Speaking of cars getting unloaded on the cheap, take this 1979 Triumph Spitfire I found for sale out near Toledo for instance. Asking price, a mere $2,500. Wow. NADA pegs this low retail at $5,350. Could this be the find of the century?
I need to take a deep breathe before I don my scarf, tweed cap and lambskin driving gloves.
A neighbor in the god-forsaken hamlet I grew up in on Long Island in the Seventies had one of these in burnt orange, and as far as I was concerned, stood out in the best of ways in an ocean of brutish Fords, Chevys, and Buicks. I loved everything about it too. Especially its scrumptiously cool name, Triumph. Spitfire. Damn cooler than Bond. James. Bond. While I've never driven one, I've spent enough time with MG's of the Seventies to know what I'd be getting myself into driving dynamics wise.
That being something so impossibly low to the ground I'd be looking up at bicyclists hoping they wouldn't run into me. They're stiffly sprung, woefully underpowered with fairly heavy, vague and wandering manual recirculating-ball steering. Un-boosted brakes too but these things weigh like 1,700-pounds so how much "brake" do I need? A semi-easy although long clutch and notchy, dash mounted stick shift rounds out the old fashioned, and I do mean old in the kindest of ways, sports car vibe.
Contemporary road test reviews of later versions of these cars, production began on them in 1962, are tactful and qualified much in the same way scribes were with the deathless third generation Covette at the time; these were crude but fun conveyances best suited for weekend frolicking and not used as daily drivers. Hardcore track work? Hardy-harr-harr. Refinement was speculative if not incremental before production ended after 1980. 1979 Spitfires were one of the best versions of a design that was dated from the get-go.
This being a '79, its official name is "Spitfire 1500" owing to its 1.5-liter, overhead valve, pushrod, inline four-cylinder engine making approximately 70-horsepower. That's SAE net too. Zero-to-sixty coming around 13-seconds although with the top down, much like my 15-horsepower Cub Cadet garden tractor, it feels "faster" than that.
Compared to a Porsche 928, these cars had all the refinement of a garden tractor and therein lies much of what makes them so charming if not vexing. These cars offered cheap, visceral thrills whereas the 928 was arguably the first modern, do everything exceptionally well, "sports-luxury" car. In fairness, you got what you paid for; in 1979 a 928 stickered for a jaw-dropping $32,000, you could get one of these new for less than six-grand. A 1979 Corvette went for just over $10,000 although, take it from me, a Corvette had way more in common with one of these than it did with a Porsche 928.
Do I need this car? Of course not. It's a wants thing and you know how that always goes with me; I'm one of those people who can talk themselves out of most things, especially wanton "wants" like a frivolous weekend toy like this. But it's nice to dream. Especially this time of the year.
Speaking of which, about time I put the mulching blades on the Cub Cadet and take care of the leaves that are falling like January snow right now.
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