Thanks folks for your time in offering your views.
Since my last post I have had quite a close shave with the old car. After fixing the clutch master cylinder, I thought I would run it up the road for a quarter-mile or so just to see if the brakes/wheels were running freely.
What can only be considered bad luck, during this short run the brass outlet spigot which is factory-pressed into the aluminium fuel pump body decided it had been factory-fitted long enough. Odd because we had not been working on the fuel pump, it had just been sitting in a cold dark lock-up for nine years.
Petrol was being splashed around the block and bulkhead and, during my very short drive - on the way back to be exact - I became aware that I was in fact on fire. Jumping out the car and raising the bonnet confirmed this and I sprinted back to my house for an extinguisher. I sprinted back, shooing our excited dog out of the way, and let it have a dose of CO2.
Had I been further from home my old Spitfire may well have lived up to its name and died right there.
I pushed it home and dampened off the smouldering bits with water from a hose and considered the damage; 80 percent of the HT leads were gone with other plastic bits melted, looms damaged etc.
While I feel sorry for the injustice to this innocent daft little car, and, if I am going to renovate it, this damage hardly signifies, I know in my heart that these cars were pretty awful things right off the production line (the UK’s automotive output was increasingly grim and frankly, got what it deserved) but there is something loveable that has only been burnished by age. It brings smiles. It is mini skirts. A bit Kings Road. 007 on the cheap and harks back to a time when life had oodles more built-in fun.
Maybe I have just reached an age where I start looking backwards more than forwards. Maybe it’s just that I find it hard to throw old stuff away and abhor use-once-throw-away modernity.
Whatever it is, this mischievous, semi-scorched, ignoble primitive little relic of a sports car is sitting here quietly imploring me to put on my old flares again and boogie once more.
