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Getting the facts straight: Spitfires at Le Mans

4 November, 2015

“Well of course, we’re past and present winners at Le Mans,” said the Porsche owner — he was deep in conversation with a Triumph owner who, alas, didn’t have an answer to that remark. It was time for me to step in, add my tuppence worth to the conversation and, in doing so, single out the Triumph Spitfire’s brief but rather successful Le Mans career.

Works racing and rally Spitfires appeared for only two seasons — 1964 and 1965 — a programme that resulted in the 1964 manufacture of four race cars (ADU 1B–4B) and four rally cars (ADU 5B–8B), with a fifth rally car (ADU 467B) being built specially for Valerie Pirie — Stirling Moss’s secretary. In 1965 two more works cars were built — ERW412C was a race car built for Bill Bradley, whilst AVC 654B was intended for rally use by Simo Lampinen.

As Triumph wound up their works effort at the end of the 1965 season, they also bolted together a one-off, open-topped race car, which went to the Hong Kong Triumph agent, Walter Sulke, principally intended for competing in the Macau GP. Apart from the Macau car, the other Spitfires all ended up wearing a fixed, fibreglass fastback — moulded from the prototype Triumph GT6. They ran 1147cc engines, at first with the standard cast-iron head until later when an alloy head was homologated. With modified suspension, a TR4 gearbox, and highly tuned engines the team entered four Spitfires into the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans. During the event only three cars started — ADU 1B and 3B crashed, but ADU 2B, driven by David Hobbs and Rob Slotemaker, finished 21st overall.

ADU 7B

For 1965 the Spitfires went on a diet, which included replacing the TR4 gearbox with GT6 units. In this form they competed at Sebring and Le Mans, with ADU 4B emerging as a class winner — a fitting end to the Spitfire’s circuit career.

ADU 2B

The rallying Spitfires competed successfully in the Alpine, Tour de France, Paris 1000 Kilometres, and Geneva rallies in 1964; the following year Spitfire teams took on the Monte Carlo, Tulip, Alpine, and Geneva rallies, while Valerie Pirie entered her car for the RAC Rally. The high-water mark of the Spitfire’s rally career was the 1965 Alpine Rally, where the cars won their class and the prototype category against the far more powerful Porsche 904s. Very few of these special Spitfires have survived to the present day — the whereabouts of ADU 8B is known, and 8B and 2B (both pictured in this article) have now been fully restored.         

We’ve hunted down some vintage Le Mans footage from 1965 for you to check out here:

 

Grand Routier — in the french tradition

10 July, 2025

Sitting in Paddy and Patsy Williams’ Dunedin garage is a stunning example of one of these rare French grand routier sedans. It is a 1949 four-door Lago-Record Factory Berline sedan, to give its full name. Daughter Cath let us know how proud she was of her dad, who had been tinkering away in his garage on this car for so many years.
Without exaggeration, it has been a mammoth task. I first saw this Talbot-Lago in mid 2019. The long-nosed, sweeping, curved four-door saloon, clothed in its misty green metallic paint, was quite breathtaking. There’s more than a little English influence in it, too, harking back to company owner Tony Lago’s involvement in the Clement-Talbot-Darracq era. The long front wings and bonnet, usually multi-louvred, highlighted with artful touches of chrome bling, are typical of the era, but these were indeed luxury length. Interiors provided leather-clad, armchair-style seating and ample legroom, with touches of wood and surprising details such as dainty childproof interior locks — a far cry from today’s lozenge boxes.
Paddy, a retired civil and structural engineer, knows his way around a lathe. He has a well-equipped garage-workshop to assist in any machining tasks along with his other passion for restoring classic motorcycles.

The Great River Road

4 July, 2025

A few years ago my family, knowing my fondness for driving, gave me the book Unforgettable Road Trips: Thirty-Six Drives of a Lifetime by Martin Derrick. Most of the road trips listed take less than a day in places like Scotland, Monaco, and Australia, plus one in New Zealand. Most of these places were too far to go just for a short drive but four of them would take several days. My interest was piqued, and those four drives were added to the bucket list. To date, I have done three of them: ‘Route 66’ (USA 21 days), ‘State Highway 6’ (NZ 10 days) and ‘The Great River Road’ (USA 22 days). You can drive all of them in less time, but you could also fly over them. We wanted a decent immersion in their charms.
The great river referred to is the Mississippi. While the name conjures the deep south, the river actually starts at the bottom of the great lakes, before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 3800km later. The great road is more of a concept than a specific strip of tarmac, as you can drive down either side of the river on various routes. Regardless of which side you drive, time should be kept aside for detours to places such as Nashville, which is famous for something or other.