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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:

 

Coaching from the bench: Casting plastic knobs and rubber parts

16 July, 2026

Casting rubber items is simple if you have a good original to work with. The item doesn’t have to be perfect. You can use plasticine to smooth out cracks, and you can even make whole prototypes out of low-fire modelling clay available from craft stores if you need to. Prototypes can also be made of wood or metal.
You will need mould dams to contain the liquid urethane moulding solution until it cures. You can build boxes out of strips of wood, but I have found that small plastic boxes and bowls such as those you would use for leftovers in your fridge work well if you spray them with a mould release agent.
Temperature is important to the chemical processes involved, so work in an area that can be maintained at around 20 degrees. You will also need adequate ventilation because the fumes can be dangerous to breathe. And you will want to wear latex gloves to protect your hands.

Fraser Cars – low flying into the fourth decade

10 July, 2026

With almost three and a half decades under its belt, Fraser Cars is one of New Zealand’s longest-surviving car manufacturers. The company first opened its doors for business in 1988, during the boom time for kit manufacturers. During the ’80s, around 40 different companies were building kits and turnkey cars for this niche market. Of those, only Fraser and Almac Cars (established 1981) are still in business today.
Most of the new kit car companies were killed off in the cradle by the threat of new legislation that never eventuated and definitively by the sudden availability of high-performance Japanese cars when the floodgates to second-hand imports were opened. The now long-retired founder of the company, Neil Fraser, first came across Lotus Seven replicas while racing Lotus Cortinas in the early ’80s. He regularly found himself racing against a little Caterham, a Lotus Seven–styled car built in England. He was very impressed by its simplicity and handling. In 1986 Fraser built his own Lotus Seven–type car, using the knowledge he had gained from several close looks at the Caterham.