Letters_from_current

Come March I will have spent three years on the project.... Good grief what has he been doing?... Please, in my defence, let me explain. I work six or
seven days a week as manager of my son's poultry breeding farm. Very labour intensive and the workload could have you going out of your head! In fact,
if I had not started the '48 project, I would probably have walked straight down Skegness beach and out to sea!
The car is being built in the farm workshop so in the summer I spend one or two hours on it most evenings, in the winter, five minutes to nothing! My
mechanical experience is really limited to everyday car maintenance, but I have been a plater/welder and have always been a DIY sort of person. That
being to my advantage, but on the down side if the instructions are written down I do not try to remember them. So, all my 'mechanicing' comes step by
step, hand in hand with the instructions and a Haynes manuel. My nearest specialists are as far as twenty-five and up to 40 miles away. Living here near
Skegness has its advantages but not as far as motoring facilities are concerned and I have never owned a Spitfire before so in some respects it is a
'strange' car for me to work with. In the main, I have followed the instructions closely for if I sell the car in future I can say that it is as originally designed.
That aside East Lincs Motor Sport re-worked my 1300 engine (higher revving that the 1500)...Slightly lightened flywheel...two pounds...too much would
upset the engine performance at low revs. We have fitted a Kent fast road cam, shaved the head, had the original carburetors overhauled and added KN
filters with ram stubs. Triumph sports stainless exhaust manifold vents through a single expansion box to twin tailpipes. East Linc Motor Sport have
guaranteed that it will go like 'spit off a hot shovel!' What more do you want? So, what am i trying to achieve with this car? Will it pass the eye of the chap
in the street as a vintage sports racing car, recently overhauled? Will people stop me and ask what it is, (mouth slightly open?)... They will!...Then that'll
do for me...Will it you?

Building the Old Growler, by David Speed

It would be easy to build a completely Triumph Spitfire based Type 48 in a few months, but when there are two people building the car, each having good
ideas about how the car should turn out, the project is bound to take a little longer. Pete Morris and I both had plenty of ideas, and our car took two
years to complete. Though the inspiration for the Type 48 was a 1948 Ferrari, the car is not intended to be an accurate replica; it is a special in the style
of the late 40's/ early 50's.
He first, and biggest, good idea was to fit a Fiat twin-can engine instead of the Triumph. It is an excellent engine, and there are still cheap, rusty Fiat's
and Lancia's with sound mechanicals about. However, fitting the non-standard 'lump' raised quite a few problems such as finding that the alternator
intercepted the steering column. This problem was solved by adjusting the alternator position and canting the engine over to the left to clear the steering
column. This raised another problem, such as the clutch actuating lever now intercepted the chassis rail, and had to be shortened, and the carburettor
manifold had to have 7 degrees of extra angle machined off it to keep the carbs horizontal.
Good idea two was the Grand Prix style outside exhaust, which Pete welded up from mild steel tube, and which was hot-sprayed with aluminium powder,
cheaper and more fitting than chrome. The exhaust is particularly sunk into an aluminium trough which runs the length of the body tub, and this in turn
required a long slot to be cut in the superb GRP body moulding. Taking an air saw to the pristine plastic was not a job that I will forget in a hurry. We are
rather proud of the (dubiously legal) result. It's also rather good for frightening horses
We both thought that the head fairings fitted to old racing cars look great, so this was the next good idea. We made a former out of expanded
polystyrene, covered it in plaster and sanded it to shape, then took a GRP female mould from it, and moulded a fairing in it. The fairing covers a
rudimentary roll-over structure of purloined scaffolding poles, to which is attached to the fuel filler, (obtained from a Corporation bus). The fuel tank itself
is made from scratch by Pete; it fits snugly behind the cockpit area. We were rather generous with the dimensions, and haven't yet been able to afford to
fill it up! At a rough guess, the capacity is about 15 gallons.
Another new GRP component is the air intake trunking which covers the K&N filters for the twin Dellorto carbs -the filters would look far too modern
stuck out in the breeze. The car incorporates masses of bits and pieces made form raw materials which happened to be to hand when a particular
component was required. Some heavy gauge brackets were made up from L-section aluminium taken from an old Royal Engineers Bomb disposal van,
and other bracketry came from a farm trailer, and some from old motorbike luggage carriers. The cars radiator grille was made from old Morris Minor grill
slats, which fill the aluminium skinned radiator duct.
The interior of the car is paneled aluminium, which looks great and conceals the inside face of the GRP body, so preserving the illusion that it is an
aluminium bodied car. Of course we wouldn't be so crass as to pass the car off as something older than it is, but if people insist on thinking it's a real '50s
racer, why should we disappoint them? The cockpit opening is edged with an aluminium coating, attached with lots of counter sunk stainless screws; this
job took a whole weekend of heating and bending to fit satisfactorily but the end result is well worth the effort. Just stick at it -we learned first time. The
wheels just had to be large, spoked and skinny, to look the part. Triumph four-stud wire wheel hubs were laced into 15" rims sprayed silver and fitted to
165 radial tyres. The mudguards (supplied with the kit) are quickly detachable, R-clipped into place. The mudguards are painted black, and the
bodywork Jaguar racing green with chrome yellow bands around the radiator and carburettor intakes.
The steering wheel came from a very early Morris Minor, wound with stout cod (no, stout cord) as was racing practice when men, cord ( and cod) were
stout. The supplied seat mouldings were upholstered in tan leatherette (yes, real leatherette) and then some of the padding removed to give a low sat-in
look.
The headrest was trimmed to match. The driver's seat belt is the full monte boy-racer rally ace job, black, with all the posey luminous labels removed. The
passenger does well to hang onto the driver; his, or preferably her, seatbelt merely conforms to legal requirements. The dashboard is polished aluminium
with (hopefully) period looking instruments: I dismantled the speedo and tacho and made new faces for them in white with black letters ( which is why the
tacho reads up to 150,000 rpm, a slight decimal misplacement which no-one noticed for weeks. The engine coped quite well too!)
A cosmetic job has been done to disguise it's Fiat origins - the cam-box covers now red 'Lampredi' after the engine designer. (He designed GP engines
for Ferrari also). The cam-boxes have been de-ribbed to further confuse interested onlookers. The hideous yellow cam-belt cover was binned, and
replaced with a neat aluminium job that you might think covered a cam-chain.
What's it like to drive? Well. Its got a 1600 Fiat engine, with multiple carburetors (twin UB40's as Gary said), and a free flowing (if unscientific) exhaust,
so a hundred bhp would be a realistic estimate. Putting that through those skinny tyres is extremely entertaining. Power drifting is wonderful on
roundabout's, but do not lift your foot off the loud pedal half way around. If you do, please remember to wave the following traffic as you rotate! For
normal driving the car is a doddle. The engine is tractable, the suspension works properly and comfortably; Pete even confiscated the Escort's keys and
encouraged his partner Jody to go shopping in it; can't keep her out of it now! Handy for returning from the pub. Don't hesitate, buy one today,and
remember, when you drive an open car, the world is your ashtray!