triumph gt6+

We all have our regrets and disapointments mine was selling my first new car I ever bought a 1970 Triumph gt 6+ .
I have a 77 MGB but nothing compares to the 6 I wish in my next life I can get it back and have the where with all to do so.

Never to late to find one :)

Andre.

And little British cars are like potato chips - you can't have just one. We have three... and I'm working on #4.

(One is a '72 GT6)

I am currently molesting the hell out of a 1970 GT6+.

I had one many years ago that I loved even though it was an evil handling beast at the limit, a buddy begged pleaded and cried until I finally sold it to him. I have no idea where it went from there.

Evil handling?

http://youtu.be/mgAJhpeb3Kw

I WILL own one of these some day...

1 problem.

They are getting hard to find. :)

Numbers for the MK1's are somewhere around 500 world wide we believe.

But that is not stopping me from driving mine,

IIRC, I once had a letter published in GRM after an article about Spitfires. Much of the article was "..you can update to the GT6 part for.."

I said something like, "..hey, some of us still have GT6s..leave us a little junkyard love!"

Way back when photo (my car, '69 6+):

Photo is from '82 or so. Had the car until '95, was working on a rolling restoration. Friend gave me storage when I got divorced, but I didn't have the dough (or the space) to tow it back when he lost the land it was stored on.

Somewhere out there is a 69/70 GT6+ with my name on it. Will be a great stablemate for my TR8.

I have my dad's '69 GT6 in my garage right now undergoing a restoration. Andre, really only 500 MK I's left? I've noticed Spitfires finally starting to creep up in price. Maybe the GT6 will start appreciating a bit as well. I don't see why not, they're great cars.

In reply to boeingpilot: You wouldn't want the original 67/68 GT6 with its Spitfire rear end if you actually want to drive it. The later ones were much better cars.

TR8owner wrote: In reply to boeingpilot: You wouldn't want the original 67/68 GT6 with its Spitfire rear end if you actually want to drive it. The later ones were much better cars.

You can do the swing spring conversion or get a camber compensator.

I'm not sure, but I think the early Gt-6s had a different cylinder head or something.

Don't convert the rear. I've had a few friends try and come back to the original setup.

Just make some minor adjustments and you'll be fine.

Tires make a huge difference to the car to.

No one drives on those skinny 155/80's anymore.

A camber bar will help.

The early (and later) swing axle cars do handle better than the Rotoflex versions. The RF cars have such a weird rear camber curve... it's fixable but $$. Notice that Andre's car has negative camber in the rear at rest, Rf cars don't do that leading to all sorts of weirdness.

The GT6 3:89-1 diff wound up in the 1500 Spitfires, meaning it's an easy swap to put a late diff in an early car. GT6+'s were available with 3:27 and allegedly 3:55 diffs, but I have never seen a 3:55.

In reply to spitfirebill:The 67/68 did have a different cylinder head which didn't produce as much power as the later heads. It was an earlier Herald/2000 sedan head if I remember right.

I used to run a camber compensator as on Andre's car on my Mk. III Spitfire FP race car in the early 70's. You'd run it with a de-arched rear spring which gave significant negative camber. We'd then put shorter front springs to lower the front with a fatter anti-roll bar.

I've always thought the 69/70 GT6+ was the sexiest looking of the lot, but then beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

Always liked the shape but never owned one.

I think of them as a Honda S800 (remember them?) with room for actual people inside.

Curmudgeon wrote: The early (and later) swing axle cars do handle better than the Rotoflex versions. The RF cars have such a weird rear camber curve... it's fixable but $$. Notice that Andre's car has negative camber in the rear at rest, Rf cars don't do that leading to all sorts of weirdness. The GT6 3:89-1 diff wound up in the 1500 Spitfires, meaning it's an easy swap to put a late diff in an early car. GT6+'s were available with 3:27 and allegedly 3:55 diffs, but I have never seen a 3:55.

Not that I really care about tryingto make my GT6 handle, but how would you "fix" the camber curve?

I've never heard of a 3.55 rear ratio. Did you mean the 3.63? Those I've seen, but they were Euro-only and tend to be pricey in the US. Vicky Brit and Quantum Mechanics offer them. I'd love a 5 spd and a 3.63 in my car.

The camber curve fix would involve going to coilover shocks and replacing the transverse spring with a pair of control arms. PRI Race has a setup but dayumn it's expensive. It works with the swing axle setup, meaning it's a lot like a Jag where the driveshaft was also one of the control arms.

http://www.prirace.com/page/triumph-spitfire-independent-r

I recall there being a 3:55 axle ratio, but I've been wrong before and will be again.

Easier to just replace the frame mounting brackets for the wishbones. Over on Jeff's Triumph forum there was a nicely documented study on the effects on the camber curve of raising and lowering the wishbone mounting brackets. Easily done.

I put the swing spring on my Mk I spitfire and have been happy with it. But I ahve not autocrossed with it. If I had known about Joe's camber compensator, I would have gone that route instead. I also went with a 3.89 out of the same Mk IV. I also have a 3.63 diff that went in the Mk I for a short while, but the throbbing little 1147cc didn't have enough power to pull hills. A GT-6 would do just fine with it.

I run a 4:11 diff and get the car sideways on launch. SO MUCH FUN.

GT6s are still out there. I bought a second one, 73 MK3, for my wife last month. A guy in our car club was contacted by a garage, 15 miles from home, that had the car and the owner wanted to sell it. Very reasonable price for a complete car with all the paperwork / title.

Garage is getting a little full, but it's not like these cars are the size of a 55 Buick, you can always find the room for another one.

BTW, I have the 3.89 in my 70 GT6 and I picked up a 3.27 that I'm going to try some day. I went with a larger, 7/8" front sway bar, lowered front springs and wider tires. Being a 40+ year old car I replaced all the bushings (kept rubber not Poly), shocks and rod ends. The car handles well on the street but I've never had it on the track.

mike

Curmudgeon wrote: The camber curve fix would involve going to coilover shocks and replacing the transverse spring with a pair of control arms. PRI Race has a setup but dayumn it's expensive. It works with the swing axle setup, meaning it's a lot like a Jag where the driveshaft was also one of the control arms.

I'm familiar with the PRI setup and I can see how it would work on a std Spit, but I can't see how that would improve a rotoflex car at all. When I visualize the camber curve, it looks to go horrifically positive as the suspension compresses. It's hard to tell from the stock pic, but one of the guys on NASS posted a pic of his GT6 raw frame with the PRI upper arms an Canely alloy lower arms. It's like they couldn't have chosen worse pivot points if they tried.

There is one other thing in favour of the GT6.

IMHO, the in line 6 produces the second best exhaust note there is (after the V12). A GT6 with a Stebro or other low restriction exhaust, winding it up on a cool early morning jaunt is a sound to be relished!

I would love to see a comparison test between the MGB GT and the GT6, plus maybe a 2002 and a 128 coupe thrown in, but mostly interested in the two brits being compared, but in the modern sense; 0-60, 0-100 (would need a lot of room), lateral G's, slalom, braking, mpg's, small road course, cost, options (ha!) and ergonomics.

I've been reading classic car oriented magazines with lots of comparison type testing, but have never seen this one for some reason, and have never seen one distributed from the time they were manufactured. Does anyone know of one?

I would think at the time these two cars were sort of like what the WRX STi and Mitsubishi Evo were like a few years ago, but maybe I'm wrong.