feature vehicle:

I bought my 1978 Spitfire in March, 1994, when it looked like this:

Paul Geithner's 1978 Triumph Spitfire - "BEFORE"

background

My first car was a 1984 VW Scirocco.  Being a young engineer, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  I learned the basics of cars working on this vehicle, doing things like changing anti-sway bars, springs and shocks, and wheels and tires.  I also installed a good, free-flowing exhaust, a slightly larger throttle body and K&N filter, changed the cam, fiddled with the ignition and cam timing, and installed an oil cooler.  I even installed a Rootes-type supercharger providing 6 psi of boost. It was with this car that I started autocrossing.

 

The first car I actually built from the ground up was a 1971 Toyota Corolla coupe:

Inspired by my friend Peter Troin, I became very active in autocrossing in Southern California in the late 1980’s and acquired the Corolla. This was a good choice as a hobby car as it was lightweight yet tough, rear-drive, easy to work on, and parts for it were plentiful and inexpensive. I learned much more putting this thing together, spending lots of time in the salvage yards of greater Los Angeles, and rebuilding or adapting virtually everything from inexpensive salvage parts.

The "red car" served me well as my transportation and competitive autocrosser from mid-1988 through mid-1995. It was followed by a black 4-door SOHC 1995 Dodge Neon. Known as the "appliance," the Neon served me well as a basic transportation vehicle, surviving a deer strike along the way, until the summer of 2003 when it just got to the point where it wasn't worth maintaining.  After the Neon, I really wanted to try a luxury performance car, so I bought a used black 1996 BMW 740iL through an ad in the newspaper.  It was a nice upgrade and it certainly was a pleasure to drive, but something more utilitarian was calling.  The next car was a used 2002 Dodge Dakota Quad-Cab Pickup.  It was a good while it lasted, and I used to tow home my 1968 Triumph Spitfire Mk3, a GT6+ chassis and many more parts, in addition to home construction supplies.  My current TSV (Triumph Support Vehicle) is a 2010 Nissan Frontier quad-cab 4x4.  By chance, the bed is perfectly sized for a Spitfire bonnet (gate up) or tub (gate down).  I split my commute between the truck and the ’78 Spitfire.  If it’s a nice day out, the roads are clean and dry and there’s no precipitation is seriously in the forecast, I drive the Spitfire (the hardtop is great in winter) and enjoy the journey; otherwise, the Frontier is really nice with lots of power, good handling, and excellent for hauling my surfboard.

Other subjects of the Fossil Motorsports garage are been my wife's and kids’ cars, which fill the driveway at any given time.

the future

I would like more tools (wouldn't everyone?), and over time, they are accumulating.  There are many beautiful and interesting cars that I would love to restore (e.g., the series 1 Jaguar XKE, Sunbeam Alpine or Tiger, a Healey, an Alfa, etc.), but I have some Triumphs to finish first.

So many cars...so little time!

Paul H. Geithner