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Sammio bodied Spitfire with Rover V8 engine on eBay
It may be just the photo, but the rack looks like it has been moved forward and those steering arms look to be at a horrible angle...and from the back-end, it will need to go down the IVA route...and there is little chance of it getting through that without a huge amount of work. That is a lively track day car at best...in my very humble opinion.
It looks more like a Cordite, but I might be wrong.
It also looks like the wheels are bolted on inside out to increase the track or avoid the exhausts. Bagsy not do the first test drive.
Hmm, definitely a Cordite bonnet as the nose is quite different, and it's also probably a Cordite body as there's no sign of a cut'n'shut anywhere.
The steering rack is in the right place - just ahead of the front suspension turrets - and I'd suggest that the angle of the steering arms is down to the car being lowered an awful lot, perhaps too much.
The engine installation looks pretty neat, but I seem to recall that Mike Miglia put a V8 into a Herald chassis with his, ahem, uniquely modified Spyder body over it and it needed a scoop the size of a wheelbarrow to clear the carbs. As that engine looks low enough for the carbs to clear the inside of the bonnet (although they're not fitted in the pics, perhaps significantly) it looks as if the front cross-member might also have been moved or removed.
Overall, with the rear suspension mods alone, never mind the possible cut to the front chassis, it's going to need IVA, which is going to take an awful lot of work.
Would fly on a track, though, possibly quite literally...
I am familiar with this car and the guy really know his stuff!
If I remember rightly this was one of the "new and re-worked" Ribble Navigator bodies !!!.hwell:
IMHO I think the V8 will put people off as having sold a few Sammio's now the preferred engine seems to be the Vitesse 2lt straight six, any thing different such as a BMW or Pinto engine just put's buyers off.
That said the real challenge will be getting it registered, insured and road worthy. .
I am familiar with this car and the guy really know his stuff
From an engineering viewpoint I can believe it, but to cut the back off the chassis and then display the V5 as if it is still relevant suggests that he is unfamiliar with some aspects of road car building, and he is in danger of accidentally misleading an unsuspecting buyer. He effectively scrapped that Spitfire. What he is selling no longer has much to do with that car.
It's been bid up to £1,650 at the moment. At that price it's a good value source of parts - a tuned V8 with manual five speed, the Sammio body, frame(?) and screens, all new Spitfire suspension and brakes etc.
As such, it would make a good basis for a couple of different projects but would be very difficult to register for the road as it stands.