|From akkana:
|The last time I drove a Spitfire it was an 1147 with a 1500 rear spring,
|slightly lowered front springs, and Hoosier tires. It handled quite as
|well as my X1/9 (which is to say, about the same cornering loads as a
|go-kart). [...and more wonderful things about Spitfires...]
|On the other hand, the Spitfire engine (at least the 1147) is woefully anemic.
Thank you, Akkana! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I owned a '74 X-1/9, a.k.a. X-one-ninth, which is how I can remember that
it is supposed to be X-1/9 and not X/1-9, ordered when they were less than
than 6 months old on the showroom floor, waited another month or more for it
to come in. It handled like nothing I had ever driven, and was so woefully
underpowered that every sedan in town would eat its rear bumper coming off
stoplights. And woe be unto the driver who accidentally let the engine stop
on a hot day...wait 10 minutes, try restarting, hope vapor-lock has fixed
itself...try again. It won me three autocross firsts though. When I first
bought the Spitfire 1500, I knew it would be "slow but faster than the Fiat"
had been. I was pleasantly surprised. I still can't beat "real" sports cars
like Porsches or 300ZX's, or RX-7's, but *NO* sedans eat my bumper now! :-}
I expected it to handle somewhat worse, though acceptably. I was pleasantly
surprised to find that it too can go around corners! Isn't life wonderful?
Oh, one more thing. About 67 as a significant Triumph number, I can't think of
anything right off the top of my head. I'll look tonight if I remember. The
most significant thing I can imagine right now was that 1967 was the last year
of the TR-4A.
Jim Muller
|