• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Spitfire 60’s spitfire body swapped onto a 1500 cassis

Share this page

K

ken941

Freshman Member
Offline
60’s spitfire body swapped onto a 1500 cassis

Can a 60’s spitfire body be swapped onto a 70’s 1500 frame easily I have a 75 that’s in pretty good shape but prefer 60’s body and the 1500 cassis and engine. How much modification would it take if any to do this engine and trany mounts ect didn’t wont to run into any unexpected problems. I do have a welder and some other fabricating tool.
Thank you
Ken
 
Re: 60’s spitfire body swapped onto a 1500 cassis

Ken, it's a pretty straightforward swap. Should you keep the 1500 bonnet, it's even easier. If you want the early bonnet as well, you'll need the hinge pivots appropriate to same to replace what's on the 1500 front crossmember, and you'll also want the early bonnet's corresponding valance, bumper, etc. The crossmember itself is the same, otherwise; in fact, the whole chassis and main body structure never changed much during the 18-year-plus production of the Spitfire.
 
Re: 60’s spitfire body swapped onto a 1500 cassis

Thanks for the quick response Andrew would the bumper mounts be about the same or would I have to cut and weld parts from the older cassis to the new one also the newer bonnet would just fit up to the older body ? I haven’t got my car home yet . I was thinking of instead of restoring the 75 just getting the body from a older one and do right the first time.
Thank you
Ken
 
Re: 60’s spitfire body swapped onto a 1500 cassis

The newer bonnet will line up just fine with an older tub, if that's how you decide to go. It works both ways, btw; witness this "SPIT 6" conversion on eBay utilizing the later style body and chassis with an earlier style [GT6} bonnet!

Again, if you want the earlier bonnet as well, grab everything you can from the "donor" car. In fact, you might find it easiest (if possible) to carefully cut off the entire front crossmember from the early car, as well as getting the bonnet, bumper and mounts, and valence, and then grafting that on to the later chassis.

On the other hand, if you find a nice enough complete early donor, it might make more sense to simply transplant later mechanicals into that, if your desire is the early body with the later, bigger engine, etc., etc.!
 
Back
Top