Edward
Bartender
- Messages
- 25,081
- Location
- London, UK
Interesting project, I looked forward to seeing the end result. The easiest way of making the bottom flap pockets functional might be to make them patch pockets, like an A2. They won't be very big, but then the originals were more or show than anything imo anyhow. Am I reading the photos right, that the sleeve zip comes back to reveal not the conventional leather gusset, but one made of the wool/cotton lining? That looks nice.
Beautiful car, the A. So much swoopier and curvier than the B. I kinda wish they'd made a fastback hardtop version of the A (there were a very few made as hard tops, but they were a sort of bubble-top approximation of the shape of the hood turned into a permanent hard top. Very practical, but not quite as aesthetically pleasing as a GT version of the A might have been (c/f the MGB GT to the MGB).
Quite the transformation! There's something about the Spitfire that to my mind makes it so much more fun than a B (perhaps, in part, my subjective opinion that a decent B now costs far more than it was ever really worth!). I noticed you had the GT6 bonnet on there, wondered if you'd upped spec to that. Which Toyota block did you go for? I have a vague memory that one of the smaller Toyota engines was for a time a fashionable upgrade for the Minor 1000; certainly a Toyota five speed box, even mated to the original 1098cc, was a significant performance improver on those.
If ever I had the sort of money to keep a place in the country so it was worth running a car, I'd be tempted by a GT6 - always thought of them as a baby E Type, or maybe a mini-DB5, in spirit...
Beautiful car, the A. So much swoopier and curvier than the B. I kinda wish they'd made a fastback hardtop version of the A (there were a very few made as hard tops, but they were a sort of bubble-top approximation of the shape of the hood turned into a permanent hard top. Very practical, but not quite as aesthetically pleasing as a GT version of the A might have been (c/f the MGB GT to the MGB).
Cheers, I put a lot of work into that Spitfire!Would you believe this is how she looked almost four years ago now?!
So I'm not a stranger to hardship, hah. I'm find of the MGB too, it was a contender before I chanced upon the Spitty project. The clam shell bonnet is indeed a blessing, proved particularly handy when wiring up my Toyota engine conversion ;-)
Quite the transformation! There's something about the Spitfire that to my mind makes it so much more fun than a B (perhaps, in part, my subjective opinion that a decent B now costs far more than it was ever really worth!). I noticed you had the GT6 bonnet on there, wondered if you'd upped spec to that. Which Toyota block did you go for? I have a vague memory that one of the smaller Toyota engines was for a time a fashionable upgrade for the Minor 1000; certainly a Toyota five speed box, even mated to the original 1098cc, was a significant performance improver on those.
If ever I had the sort of money to keep a place in the country so it was worth running a car, I'd be tempted by a GT6 - always thought of them as a baby E Type, or maybe a mini-DB5, in spirit...
