Keep your foot in it, and the Spitfire just keeps gathering speed-it'll cruise at 70 mph without strain.

gasoline, a quarter-tank (10 quarts) allows you about three days to find a gas station.

The thrifty will love the Triumph's ability to wring miles out of a gallon even when driven fast. But only an oriental mystic in the bed-of-nails tradition will enjoy the things the car does to one's legs. Assume the position behind the wheel and you will immediately notice a couple of things. First, it will come to you that having one's left leg stretched out into nothingness, and the right leg crooked well back, is uncomfortable. This is mostly un- avoidable, as the clutch, brake and accelerator pedals are quite closely situated, while the toe-board is up there by the wheel-well. Moving the entire control- pedal group forward, and adding a rest, or "dead-pedal" for one's left foot would make the driver much more comfortable. The second revelation comes after you have been driving for a time. Then, you become aware that your right shin, which falls naturally against a structural member bracing the cowl, is beginning to ache.

Our Spitfire had all of the posh extras, including a good AM-FM radio. Often, a good radio is wasted in a sports car, be- cause there is so much noise you can't hear it anyway. It is worth having in the Spit- fire; the car is fairly quiet by overall small- car standards, and really exceptional for a small sports car. Engine noise is very muted, and the raucous blat from the exhaust we once considered a sine qua non for Triumphs has been subdued to a nice, mellow hummmm. Even wind noise is largely absent. The top doesn't flap or drum, and you can run along at speed with both windows cranked down without get- ting a lot of buffeting.

Such noise as is there all seems to come from the drive train, and in the form of road-rumble. There is a bit of transmission whine, and a kind of muffled grumbling from the prop shaft and final drive. Not the worrisome type noise; just an aware- ness that things are whirling and churning earnestly.

Handling and general road behavior is a mixture of good and bad. On the good side, we must say that the car feels well balanced. Swing-axle rear suspensions, like that on the Spitfire, tend to produce over- steer. Nose-heavy weight distribution tends to produce understeer. The Spitfire carries 57.7% of its 1680 lbs. in the front, and that forward weight bias seems to exactly cancel whatever oversteering tendencies the rear suspension might lend.

On the beneficial side, too, is the car's low center of gravity. We don't know what

this would be in inches, but it is obviously very low-because that is how the car is built. Triumph uses a backbone frame under the Spitfire, and the frame structure dodges around to allow people and major components close proximity with the road surface. Even with the narrow track (49 inches in front, 48 inches at the rear) the Spitfire stands securely planted on the road.

All sports cars have quick steering-it is an article of faith-and the Spitfire's steering is as quick as most. But it doesn't really feel that way. In fact, it feels a trifle heavy and lifeless. We decided after some reflection on the matter that it feels as though there is not enough caster at the front wheels and too much friction in the

steering. So the car feels dull and unresponsive at low speed; becoming dull and twitchy when you get motoring along rapidly. The steering friction may have been peculiar to our particular car, or might disappear with more breaking-in. Caster is built in at the factory and any sweeping corrections would have to be made there.

One of the reasons for buying a Mk. III anything is to be one-up on those who have the Mk. 11 version of whatever it is. Thus, nothing is more irritating than having a Mk. III that looks exactly like a Mk. 11 or maybe only a Mk. 11-and-a-half. You can relax. The Spitfire Mk. III has external,

easily-recognized changes to distinguish it from the Mk. II. Like its bumper, which has been raised about a foot, bringing it up in front of a redesigned grille. And over- riders at the front with rubber inserts to keep the fellow in the Buick from scarring his back bumper when he backs into your Spitfire while trying to park.

As part of the same unspoken commentary on present-day driving procedures, the rear bumpers have been raised, too, but this may have been done partly to protect the new back-up lights.

Not all changes have been external. There's a much altered engine, borrowed- in a manner of speaking-from the 1300 sedan. Without departing from the same basic block dimensions, cylinder bore size has been increased. Going from 69.3mm to 73.7mm has pushed the displacement from 1147cc to 1296cc-this without in- creasing the stroke.

Further changes in the interest of im- proving engine output are mostly in the cylinder head. Gone are the old siamesed intake ports; the new cylinder head has eight separate ports-like the arrangement seen for the past couple of seasons on Triumph's competition Spitfires. There has been no change in valve size or valve tim- ing, and the increase in power and torque with this engine is due almost exclusively to the increase in displacement.

You speed-merchants will appreciate the fact that the exhaust valve has been crowded over a bit nearer the edge of the bore, and the intake valve moved closer to the bore center. In the shuffle, the dis- tance between valves has been increased slightly, so you can squeeze in a larger in- take valve and have it less shrouded by the side of the cylinder. (It should be mentioned here that the new cylinder head will not fit on the Mk. 11 block. The Mk. III block has IO studs instead of II.

To cope with the extra torque, a new clutch has been fitted. It is one of these diaphragm-spring affairs, which gives it a sort of over-center action just as it begins to engage. It also lends a tendency to drop into engagement rather suddenly, which produces a surprisingly abrupt departure from wherever you happen to be stopped until you become proficient with the de- vice. Further abruptness is supplied by a throttle linkage that seems to give some- where near 3/4-throttle for the initial quarter-inch of motion down at the pedal. Together, these things provide a mighty surge forward-for about 50 feet. After that, reality sets in, and reality, in this in- stance, is 75 horsepower.

But if the Spitfire is lacking rocket-like acceleration, it makes up for it in some part by being a very zippy little road cruiser. Keep your foot in it, and the Spit- fire just keeps gathering speed-and it will cruise at 70 mph without feeling strained.

100 mph.  that the car might perform better all around if fitted with the optional overdrive, and something near a 4.55:1 final drive ratio.

It would perform better, too, if Triumph relied less on stiff springs and more on damping to give good handling. The Spit- fire is very stiffly suspended, and at times seems to have no shock absorbers at all. They get away with some of this because the frame and body are rigid structures and don't seem to mind all the banging about.

It conics to us too, that the Spitfire is trundling around on rather scanty rubber. In plain fact, the 5.20-13 tires, even on the wider rims you get with the optional wire wheels, are not up to what the sporting driver is likely to ask of them. Drive hard, and the car skitters sideways more like a family sedan than a true sports car. It is very stable in the turns, and will always point itself where it is aimed-but some- times the tires simply aren't equal to the job of carrying it off in that direction.

The Spitfire's brakes, however, cannot be faulted. New lining materials, and larger calipers for the front (disc) brakes have made the improvement. The bigger front calipers also provide more pad area, and that, we are told, insures longer life.

.Probably the best reason for owning a Spitfire, if we are to be practical, is that it has proven to be a very reliable auto- mobile. This has been true of Triumphs generally. Somehow, Triumph manages to make the same old engine, transmission, etc., perform better and better-and last longer and longer. Spitfires are not a break in the tradition. They never give up en- tirely, and determined and superbly inept flogging by numerous novice sports car buffs has never been enough to break a significant number of the Mks. I or If. There is every reason to expect the Mk. III will be, if anything, even more reliable.

And of course the best reason for buy- ing a Spitfire is that the thing is a ball to drive. Everyone starts out with a Spitfire, or something similar, and we don't know anyone who looks back on the experience with anything other than great fondness. It

is all a necessary part of being led into the car game. You go from some vast, floaty sedan-with umpteen turns of free lash in the steering-into a jouncy, feisty little item like the Spitfire. It is confined and harsh of ride beyond all reason, and you love it. You won't be able to explain it all to your friends, but they will understand, dimly, that it's about fun, and young man- hood found or re-discovered. So Walter Mitty pulls on his driving gloves and is soon hurtling through Arnage, or cranking around the hairpin at Stavelot. Man does not live by comfort alone. Perhaps there is some danger that cars may become too good to be interesting, or maybe just too good to be fun. The Triumph Spitfire Mk. III has not yet fallen into that character- less condition