Nice GT6 Tee shirts

[avivalasvegas]

I have no affiliation with the seller but these look great! 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/AUTOTEES-T-SHIRT-FOR-RETRO-TRIUMPH-GT6-MK1-LE-MANS-CLASSIC-CAR-ENTHUSIASTS/163809499321?hash=item2623ce98b9:g:lScAAOSw3SFdTDlN&var=463359286022

[Gully]

Same seller does a nice GT6 Mk 3 one too.

Gully

[dougbgt6]

Very nice, but they weren’t! 😆 It’s an urban myth, they were Spitfires. So any aficionado wouldn’t be seen in one!

The GT6 was designed before Le Mans and the Le Mans Spitfires copied the fastback.

”Fake news” by a young Triumph marketing executive, a Mr Trump.

Doug

[avivalasvegas]

If the Lemas Spitfires were regular Spitfires with a fastback and more power, and a GT6 is a Spitfire with a fastback with more power, the link doesn't appear to be as weak as you suggest perhaps?

[dougbgt6]

The pertinent fact is the GT6 was designed before Le Mans so wasn’t born there.

db

[Pete Lewis]

whilst the works spitfires had a fast back it hardly resembles any GT6

i dont see how anyone could think they were the same ..utter nuts 

both wildly different apart from the basic shape concept used by so many  marques  over the years 

pete

 

 

[avivalasvegas]

I must be nuts then but I thought they were GT6 cars with different headlamp assemblies. 

[Colin Lindsay]

5 hours ago, Pete Lewis said:

whilst the works spitfires had a fast back it hardly resembles any GT6

i dont see how anyone could think they were the same ..utter nuts 

both wildly different apart from the basic shape concept used by so many  marques  over the years 

pete

 

 

Well today we'd say it was made by the same people who make replacement panels; looks nothing like the original and doesn't fit. However it was a fibreglass mould taken from the GT6, so therefore resembles the outline if not the finer detail.

If, as Doug says, the GT6 was designed before Le Mans, take that as the 'conception' part; it never actually hit the road until 1966 so you could say it was actually born four years later, AFTER Le Mans. Gestated at Le Mans, maybe?

NOW: just to throw a spanner in the works, we agree Spitfires raced at Le Mans, but in 1966 Triumph embarked on the GT6R project, a six cylinder fastback with triple carbs with an estimated top speed of 160mph to race at Le Mans, but it was later abandoned due to regulations. Did THIS vehicle, ADU 5 A,  have any bearing on the finished GT6 that became the production vehicle we all know? 

Anyway, enjoy the video of the Spitfires, below.

 

[Peter Truman]

Doesn't specifically relate to the Le Mans Spitfire GT's but here's an Australian slant to a prototype Spitfire GT4, GT6's were never CKD assembled in Aus or sold direct only personnel imports.

The veracity of the AMI prototype cannot be proved as Toyota brought AMI out & stopped Triumph production and subsequently destroyed all the AMI records of Triumph CKD production, which covered Heralds, Spitfire's, and the 2000/2500 saloons.

[Graham C]

Sometime ago there was a story in the Courier about someone building a GT6R from scratch. 

Not sure what happened, from memory the car was slightly larger than a normal GT6. 

Until the mention here I had a feeling it was an April fool joke.

Anyone have any information on this car?

Graham