TriumphSpitfire

Kas Kastner and the Triumph Spitfire

The American who ran Triumph's competition department in the United States from 1963 to 1970: three of the Le Mans Spitfires at Sebring in 1965, and the Macau Spitfire's two years with him.

About the pictureA Spitfire in a 2022 American club race, not Kastner or a car of his.

A dark blue Spitfire racer with yellow 07 numbers leads a green Midget and a yellow and black Volkswagen round a bend, with wooded hills behind.
Stand-in A racing Spitfire, No. 07, leads an MG Midget and a Volkswagen in an American club race in July 2022: club racing of the kind Triumph's US competition department supported, not one of its cars.Robert Yorde, CC BY 2.0

At Sebring on 27 March 1965, three of Triumph's Le Mans Spitfires started the 12 Hours for Standard Triumph Inc., the American company, prepared under Kas Kastner. Two of them finished, 2nd and 3rd in the GT class for cars up to 1,300 cc, behind the works MG Midget.

Kastner set up Triumph's competition department in the United States in 1963 and ran it until the end of 1970.⁠1​2

Salt Lake City to Los Angeles

Sources for Kas Kastner

Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠2; Moss Motoring, "Loud Pedal", 19 May 2021⁠3; Canley Classics, "Macau Spitfire"⁠4; Moss Motoring, "Press Release: British Sports Car Hall of Fame", 20 Mar 2017⁠5; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1960, Feb 1960⁠6; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2)⁠7; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results⁠8; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1964, Jan 1964 (vol. 10 no. 1)⁠9; Gordon H. Jennings, "Kas Kastner and his Super Triumph", Car and Driver, Feb 1966, pp. 48–49, 92⁠10; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3)⁠11; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4)⁠12; racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results⁠13; Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94⁠14; James T. Crow, "Profile: Kas Kastner", Road & Track, Jun 1978 (vol. 29 no. 10), pp. 14–15, 18⁠15; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, October 1955, Oct 1955⁠16; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1959, Aug 1959⁠17; Leon Mandel, "TR-250K: Salvation of an Empire", Car and Driver, Apr 1968 (vol. 13 no. 10)⁠18; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1968, Feb 1968 (vol. 14 no. 2)⁠19; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1969, Apr 1969 (vol. 15 no. 4)⁠20; Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1971, Feb 1971 (vol. 17 no. 2)⁠21

Robert William Kastner, known as Kas, was born in 1928. He first raced in 1952, in an MG TD, opened a tuning shop in Salt Lake City in 1953 and moved on to Los Angeles. In 1958 he joined Cal Sales, Triumph's importer for 11 western states, as its service manager, and in 1959, according to Moss Motoring, he won the Class E Production championship in a TR3. When Triumph bought Cal Sales and barred its executives from competing, he stopped racing. Moss Motoring quoted him in 2011: "In Class E Production in the '60s, if you didn't have a Triumph, you had no chance".

  1. 1958

    Cal Sales

    Service manager at Triumph's importer for the western states.

  2. 1963

    The competition department

    Set up after that year's Sebring race.

  3. 1964

    Le Mans

    The factory team's guest in June.

  4. 1965

    Sebring

    Three of the Le Mans Spitfires; two finish.

  5. 1966

    The Macau Spitfire

    His from April 1966 to February 1968.

  6. 1970

    Leaving Triumph

    At the end of the year.

  7. 1986

    Nissan

    Its national motorsports manager in the United States.

  8. 2017

    The Hall of Fame

    In the first class of the British Sports Car Hall of Fame.⁠2​1​4​5

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The competition department

In 1963 Kastner prepared three TR4s for the Sebring 12 Hours, and they finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in their class. When Triumph would not pay him for the work, Carroll Shelby offered him a job, and Triumph matched it by letting him set up a competition department in the United States, which Kastner said was the first of any foreign maker there. He wrote Triumph's competition preparation manuals and ran a programme of help for private drivers; Triumph gave one of his Sebring TR4s to Bob Tullius. In June 1964 he went to Le Mans as the guest of the factory team.⁠2​22

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Sebring and the club races, 1964–65

His department's Spitfire entries, as racingsportscars records them:

  • 1964

    Riverside 3 Hours

    On 10 October, a Spitfire entered by R. W. Kastner for Ed Barker and Charlie Gates; it did not arrive.

  • 1965

    Sebring 12 Hours

    On 27 March, three cars entered by Standard Triumph Inc. No. 67, ADU 4B, for Barker, Duane Feuerhelm and Mike Rothschild: 29th overall and 2nd in the GT class up to 1,300 cc. No. 66, ADU 2B, for Tullius and Gates: 30th and 3rd in class. No. 65, ADU 1B, for Peter Bolton and Rothschild: crashed after 5 laps.

  • 1965

    Vaca Valley

    On 6 November, in a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) regional race, Barker won his class in Kastner's entry.

Canley Classics identifies the three Sebring cars, and has a photograph of a works competition mechanic, Peter Clarke, with ADU 4B there. Barker won the SCCA's national G Production title in a Spitfire at Riverside in November 1964 as his own entrant, racingsportscars records; no source read says whether Kastner's department prepared the car.⁠23​1​24​25​26

A white town sign reading Welcome to Sebring, home of 12 Hour Grand Prix, with three American flags.
Sebring, Florida, where his department's three Spitfires raced in March 1965, at its welcome sign in April 2007: the town, not the race.Chuck Schultz, CC BY-SA 2.0

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The Macau Spitfire, 1966–68

The Macau Spitfire, the single-seater Triumph built for the Macau Grand Prix of November 1965, was shipped to Kastner's department on 13 April 1966. Canley Classics, which now owns it, gives his ownership as 14 April 1966 to 2 February 1968.

Charlie Gates was its only driver while Kastner had it. With its original engine it ran two or three times in the United States Road Racing Championship and SCCA events and was not competitive. Then a 2-litre six-cylinder engine went in, and Kastner thought, "probably", that it took 3rd in the under-2-litre class at Riverside, a day he remembered for the $800 it won; none of his photographs is dated. His e-mails to Canley, written decades later, date the engine change anywhere from 1964 to 1967; Canley, whose documents show he had the car from April 1966, puts it at Christmas 1966, as he also recalled. For American rules it gained a passenger seat and a full-width windscreen (windshield) for the championship and a full roll-over bar for the SCCA, and in mid-1967 it lost the hump behind its cockpit and was painted white. In February 1968 it went to Alamo Sports Cars in Texas.

Long afterwards Kastner helped Canley Classics recover the car's original eight-port cylinder head from California.⁠4​27

A city dual carriageway lined with barriers and striped kerbs, a footbridge crossing it below tall buildings.
Macau's Guia street circuit from above in November 2010, with no race running: the city the car was built to race in before it came to Kastner, not the car.Klaus Nahr, CC BY-SA 2.0

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After Triumph

Kastner left Triumph at the end of 1970 and formed Kastner-Brophy Racing with John Brophy to race Triumphs in the SCCA. From 1986 he ran Nissan's motor sport in the United States. In 2017 he and Tullius were in the first class of the British Sports Car Hall of Fame, and he died in 2021.

When Moss Motoring marked his death, it recalled a Kastner Cup race event that the Friends of Triumph had held at Road Atlanta. In 2025 a recreation of the Macau Spitfire, the car Gates raced for him, was accepted for American historic racing.⁠2​5​3​28

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Roles

  1. 1958

    Service manager

    Cal Sales, Triumph's importer for 11 western states

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠2

  2. 1963

    Team manager

    1963–1970. Standard-Triumph's US competition department, which he set up after the 1963 Sebring race; he left Triumph at the end of 1970

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠2

  3. 1965

    Team manager

    27 March 1965. Prepared the three ex-Le Mans Spitfires that Standard Triumph Inc. entered at the Sebring 12 Hours, 27 March 1965

    racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1965, results⁠1; Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠2

  4. 1986

    Motorsport manager

    Nissan's US national motorsports manager

    Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011⁠2

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Sources

Sources are given as plain text; their addresses are on the sources page.

  • Primarymade at the time, by the maker or by people who were there
  • Referenceserious later work: clubs, specialists, magazines, books
  • Databaseresults and listings, entry by entry
  1. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1965, results, results; results and DNF table. Database
  2. Moss Motoring, "Kas Kastner – The legend and the legacy", 30 Nov 2011. Reference
  3. Moss Motoring, "Loud Pedal", 19 May 2021. Reference
  4. Canley Classics, "Macau Spitfire", Kastner section; Kastner section; Kastner Musings. Reference
  5. Moss Motoring, "Press Release: British Sports Car Hall of Fame", 20 Mar 2017. Reference
  6. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1960, Feb 1960, p. 1. Primary
  7. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1963, Feb 1963 (vol. 9 no. 2). Primary
  8. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1963, results. Database
  9. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, January 1964, Jan 1964 (vol. 10 no. 1). Primary
  10. Gordon H. Jennings, "Kas Kastner and his Super Triumph", Car and Driver, Feb 1966, pp. 48–49, 92. Primary
  11. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, March 1966, Mar 1966 (vol. 12 no. 3). Primary
  12. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1966, Apr 1966 (vol. 12 no. 4). Primary
  13. racingsportscars.com, Sebring 12 Hours 1966, results. Database
  14. Road & Track, "Multi-Purpose Triumph", Dec 1966, pp. 92–94. Primary
  15. James T. Crow, "Profile: Kas Kastner", Road & Track, Jun 1978 (vol. 29 no. 10), pp. 14–15, 18. Reference
  16. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, October 1955, Oct 1955, In Competition: the Cowboy State Sports Car Races, Cheyenne. Primary
  17. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, August 1959, Aug 1959, p. 2. Primary
  18. Leon Mandel, "TR-250K: Salvation of an Empire", Car and Driver, Apr 1968 (vol. 13 no. 10). Primary
  19. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1968, Feb 1968 (vol. 14 no. 2). Primary
  20. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, April 1969, Apr 1969 (vol. 15 no. 4). Primary
  21. Triumph Sports Owners Association, Triumph Sports Owners Association Newsletter, February 1971, Feb 1971 (vol. 17 no. 2). Primary
  22. Moss Motoring, "Bob Tullius, Group 44 Inc.", 5 Apr 2009, the Sebring TR4. Reference
  23. racingsportscars.com, "Triumph Spitfire – All Results" (9 pages, 880 entries, 1962–87), Riverside 3 h, 1964; Vaca Valley, 1965; 1964 ARRC. Database
  24. Canley Classics, "Spitfire ADU 4B Le Mans", photo captions. Reference
  25. Canley Classics, "Spitfire ADU 2B Le Mans". Reference
  26. Canley Classics, "Spitfire ADU 1B Le Mans". Reference
  27. Canley Classics, "Macau Head". Reference
  28. Art "Dutch" Van Diggelen, "10 Years in the Making: A Recreation of the Macau Spitfire #3", Moss Motoring, 24 Sep 2025. Reference

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