Sometimes it’s good to have your preconceptions challenged. I was brought up and into car culture through the entertaining and sometimes scurrilous Custom Car magazine of the 1970s (below).
Anyone that remembers that wickedly funny ‘zine will remember that as well as marrying cool modded motors with half-naked ladies Custom Car’s editorial was shot through with unadorned hatred of the Triumph Spitfire.
For some reason, the Spitfire seemed to represent to the editorial staff all that pretentious, gutless and twee about motoring in the 1970s.
And being an impressionable pre-teen in those days heady with the reek of Brut 33 and Long Life and John Player Specials, I carried this unjust hatred of the Spitfire with me deep into adulthood.
But recently we stumbled across a little set of pictures of a Spitfrire on the excellent Asphalt Heritage blog, and we’re looking at the Spitfire afresh.
We’re digging the low-slung lines. We’re admiring the purposeful stance and the peaky rear end. We’re thinking that the Spitfire must have been a fun and accessible way into motoring with a bit of passion.
