Mike's Triumph Spitfire:
Thirty Seven Years of Fun!

Spitfire 1500 Fun & Repairs during 2012 & 2013

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2012

My 2nd year of driving my Spitfire from Pensacola to attend the New Orleans British Car Day 2011.
I bought new tires because the "Triumph" labeled Firestones were 11 years old and looking bad as well as squealed a bit on even slightly hard turns. So after returning from New Orleans, I jacked up the car and took all four wheels off and loaded them in my SUV to take them to a Firestone shop. I got four Primewell P185/80/SR13's which are just slightly taller than the original size. Placing the wheels with the new tires in the back of my SUV was a tighter squeeze than the old tires. After installing the wheels back on my Spitfire, I took a test drive. The new tires feel much better, hold the road better on turns, and look better than the old ones. [April 2012]
Panhandle British Car Association 20th annual Pensacola British Car Show. [April 2012]
I drove my Spitfire to the Road Atlanta racetrack for the Historic Sportscar Racing's "Mitty" weekend, this year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Spitfire, the TR4, and the MGB. I saw more Triumphs there than I ever have in life! There were more Spitfires there than MGB's and that was a surprise to me. I watched lots of racing events in different classes including the Triumph-only race and took a parade lap (actually 2 laps!) with about 100 other Triumphs including about eight Spitfires. I met Mike Cook who was sales and marketing manager for TRIUMPH and JAGUAR during the late 1950's thru 1990. I brought my copy of his book, "Triumph Cars in America", for him to sign. Somebody made a video on YouTube of the Triumphs on the track which you can see here. More pictures are on my club's PBCA site.[April 2012]
While driving to Road Atanta, I noticed that the odometer was about to hit 63,000 so I snapped this photo with my cell phone camera! [April 2012]
Again I drove my Triumph 2000 to this show. The European Car Show at NAS Pensacola, sponsored in part by the Panhandle British Car Association and other British, German, and Italian car clubs. Proceeds were donated to the National Museum of Naval Aviation. The pictures of this event are at the PBCA website.[May 2012]
Work in progress to replace the old cracked dashboard with a new one purchased from "Spitfire Options" website.[November 2012]

2013

Here is the completed replaced dashboard as seen at the PBCA 2013 show.[April 2013]
Attended my local club's Pensacola British Car show "Brits on the Bay". We had a very successful day with over 131 cars on the field, our biggest show yet! The pictures of this event are at the PBCA website. [April 2013]

2014



 After hearing a thumping noise at low rpm and worse at higher, I realized that a serious problem could have occurred. So I decided to remove the engine and have it rebuilt because it's been 25 years since the last rebuild. This happened in March just as I was getting the car ready for my club's annual show. Instead I quickly cleaned up my Triumph 2000 and drove it to the local show. Here is also a picture of the Spitfire class at the show that year. [April 2014]
My Spitfire engine was not rebuilt yet, so I took my Triumph 2000 and my son to the South Alabama British Car Festival in Fairhope, Alabama. It was a nice drive along country roads to get there and always a good show to attend. [October 2014]