Triumph Spitfire in Popular Culture

IMCDb's members identify each car from the screen and rate its part from one star, a car in the background, to five, the database's top rating. Three stars mean a car used by a character or in a chase, and four a car used a lot by a main character or for a long time. Of the entries read, it rated only a few dozen as cars that a character uses. The versions below are IMCDb's identifications, not the productions'.

British television used Spitfires often, in The Saint, The Avengers, Department S, The Persuaders!, Doctor Who, The Sweeney, The Professionals and Minder, and so did American series from The Brady Bunch and Columbo to Charlie's Angels and Magnum, P.I. These are some of the larger roles and better-known titles:

The car shares its name with the Supermarine fighter, and in the United States its maker said so. The advertisement of the 1973 model year set a pilot in flying helmet and goggles in an inset, captioned "Ginger Lacey, Battle of Britain ace (18 kills) growls Spitfire", and claimed that the car "has done the name proud, racking up three national Class F championships" in the Sports Car Club of America's racing; the racing page has the results.

Whether the name was chosen with the fighter in mind is less clear. The launch advertising of November 1962 sold the car on its price, its turning circle and its getaway, not on the aircraft. Of the two accounts read, Lancaster Insurance's history suggests the name was probably Donald Stokes's choice. The other is a story, repeated on triumphspitfire.com with no source and told as a legend in Moss Motoring: Vickers, wanting the name Vanguard for an airliner, is said to have let Standard-Triumph choose one of its aircraft names in exchange. Moss Motoring's verdict in 2002 was: "The connection, however, is in name only, and there is no real evidence that suggests this was intentional." It found that "No record exists of any contention between the two companies regarding this situation", and called a second story, of wartime work on parts for the fighter, a legend too.

The roundel reached the car itself in the United States. For the 1970 model year, cars for the US market carried a bonnet (hood) badge that set SPITFIRE over an RAF roundel, for that year only, according to the Vintage Triumph Register; Wikipedia says only a limited number had it. British cars had a plain badge.⁠source 1​source 7​source 8​source 5​source 9​source 10​source 11

The Triumph GT6 was built on the Spitfire's chassis: a six-cylinder fastback coupé, made from 1966 to 1973 in three Marks and sold as a model of its own. According to Wikipedia, citing Graham Robson, Giovanni Michelotti was asked early in 1963 for a GT version of the Spitfire; the prototype came back late that year too heavy for the four-cylinder engine, and a six-cylinder engine made it the GT6. The works Le Mans Spitfires' fastback roof, by New Zealand Classic Car's account, was moulded from the GT6 prototype's; the racing page explains why that did not make them GT6s.

Bond Cars of Preston built its Equipe coupés on the Triumph Herald's chassis from 1963, with glass-fibre fastback bodies, the Herald's scuttle, windscreen (windshield) and doors, and, in the first three models, the Spitfire's engine, according to Wikipedia. Canley Classics counts every Equipe in its table of Standard-Triumph production. The later 2-Litre Equipes were built on the Vitesse's six-cylinder engine and chassis, Wikipedia says, which makes them relatives of the Vitesse rather than of the Spitfire.

The old rival joined the family too: from late 1974 the MG Midget used the Spitfire 1500's engine. The Triumph Fury did not. Wikipedia describes it as a Michelotti prototype of 1964–65 with a unitary body and the Triumph 2000's six-cylinder engine, so it shares a designer and, by Influx magazine's reading of its tail, some lines with the Spitfire, but not its chassis or its engine.⁠source 3​source 12​source 4​source 13​source 14​source 15​source 16​source 17​source 18​source 19

Owners have included the actor Nicolas Cage, whose first car was a yellow Spitfire. His words reach us through triumphspitfire.com, which quotes an interview of about 2000 without saying where it appeared.

triumphspitfire.com names other owners too, but gives no source for any of them.⁠source 5