What do you think between this or a spitfire!

I’d go for the Herald. A Merlin engine might be a bit thirsty in these austere times 😉

my sister’s first car was an immaculately restored Herald, it was lovely.

She sold it and bought a freelander. /shakes head.

you could also consider a morris minor, tax exempt and for a learner it’ll be about £550 on the insurance

Nah – get a Dolomite Sprint

absolute riot either one will become good with spanners very quickly 🙂
When looking for 1 check the whole body for rust particular attention to

A pillars
Window frame
sills
bottom of rear arches

Chassis dont normaly rust as so much oil from the engine covers it.
If you find one with overdrive check that it works as it should handy for the mway.

Have a browse around this site and it forums all you could possibly need to know about these fun little cars.

club triumph

My 1st car still awaiting me to finish her rebuild.

The other sunday car.

I think a herald will be the best insurance wise. and yeah i was a bit worried about rust :/
I like the miners but are they more a womans car?
and i like the herald interior 😀

Some Heralds are more attractive than others, convertibles are seriously cool… But ALL Spitfires are cool, mine was the 1500 o/d soft and hard top and I loved it. No choice really. 😆 GT6 looks good, just not as good as a Spitfire though. 😉

Every single panel to rebuild spits and heralds is available off the shelf and most are simple to replace unless you start rebuilding inner outer sills and floor pans, oh and the windscreen surrounds are a unt.
Find a good one and your laughing. Wouldt imagine a huge difference in insurance between the 2 either. Spitfires are a very snug fit if your tall and you practically lie down to drive them.

Insurance on a gt6 is a straight no go!

I had a straight six Triumph 2.5 in an old P saloon; barely managed 10mpg…, on a run.

Good idea. Buy it, getting it running just right, and then stick one of these bodies on it

can just eek the 2ltr 6 in the gt6 to 30mpg.
Spit 1500 in the low 40s way back when it was on the road.

Would love an big old barge like the 2.5pi especialy the estate version.

Spitfire

My parents have had a load of them, last had a lot of racing spec parts (diff’, clutch, Webbers, adjustable shocks, SS exhaust, blah, blah, blah) not that it really needed them to feel fast sat 6″ off the tarmac. Bodywork was a bit rough, at least 6 colours at one point.

My uncle did have a vitesse engined herald estate for a while, soft-top not very compatible with surf board stacks.

Finding a gt6 these days is getting hard and the prices are going up accordingly. Spitfires are still plentifull and cheap to buy.
Heralds seem harder to find aswell convertibles are worth more over a saloon.

one point of note the herald saloon roof is removable some have in the past been converted into soft tops. minus the extra strengthening to the rear tub. Wobbly wobbly so if looking for a soft top herald do some checking that its a genuine one.

Check drive shaft couplings
Check prop shaft couplings
Check rear sus mounting points and outriggers
Gearbox – check 1st to 2nd change, if difficult could mean a gearbox out and strip to replace a little circlip.
Engine. Does it rattle on start up? Check crankshaft end float, thrust washers are prone to wear especially on 1.5 engines.
Also manifests itself as being difficult to engage 1st gear
Chassis do rust. I have scrapped my old Herald and replaced one on brother-in-laws Spitfire
I have a spare engine, gearbox and rear axle inc diff shafts etc.
Be wary if the doors drop when you open them, as above can be signs of rotten pillars/floor/sill area
Fronts suspension pins are prone to wear if not lubricated properly/regularly.
You must be able to get a proper look underneath the car to check all suspension, transmission and chassis components.

I both served my time on Triumphs and passed my driving test in my Grandads Herald 😆

Good reading on this site.

Spitfire. Great fun but it’s not a family car so I’m thinking of selling mine after a happy 17 years of ownership.
You’ve got to enjoy spannering though because they are high maintenance compared to modern cars. Very easy to work on though and nearly all spares still available

None of the above

Get a Triumph Vitesse – its a Herald with a 2litre straight 6 engine.

Minor’s are not just a “woman’s” car. They are common, relatively cheap, easy to work on, and you can build one pretty much from scratch from new parts. You can fit them with discs, run them on unleaded, the A-Series engines have been tuned for competition for decades and they handle very well with some slightly wider tyres. They’ve been customised with 3.5ltr Rover V8’s, MGB engines, I had a ’53 with a 1300 A-Series, Riley front drums, van rear axle, Koni shocks, 5×13″ alloys with 185×13 tyres and reclining buckets. That car was so much fun to own and drive, until a drunk milkman drove into the back of it while waiting to go to work from clubbing. Arse. I loved that little car.

sublime

ridiculous!
Girls car?

‘Jellymoulds’ are the bestest, most funnest car ever. FACT! 🙂

I agree them cars are insane!
But i cant afford a car on a modified insurance so i would have to leave it standard!
your probably right though

Showing your age there Trekster mate 🙂

I like the miners but are they more a womans car?

That’s right. Because a Herald is masculine right?
😆

My first car was a 1975 Spitfire 1500 in vermilion with black pleather.

Loved it! Best car I ever had, so much fun and I’m so glad I got something a bit different to the ubiquitous Fiestas and Novas that my contemporaries drove.

Dead easy to work on – I rebuilt the cylinder head, replaced all the front suspension, rewired bits that caught fire (a common problem on some) and generally had a whale of a time.

Insurance was less than 100 quid at one point, which for a 21y/o driving a sports car was ridiculous. Fuel economy was around 40mpg.

I plan to buy a minter at some point and trick it out throughout.

Do it!!!

I’d go for the Herald, just on the grounds of insurance as a first class, if nothing else. They’re not that much slower than a Spitfire and are more practical.

I had a Herald convertible as my only car for nearly 10 years ‘back in the day’. Was doing 20,000 miles a year in it at one point.

I fitted a big valve 1300 engine with twin carbs, larger rad, TriumpTune twin pipe exhaust and an oil cooler to it as well as a reverse rear leaf spring to stop the tuck under at the back. Was a fantastic car.

Best thing I did was fit an overdrive gearbox though – that little switch on the gear stick was great for accelerating t3rd and 4th.

Still miss it 🙁

on the plus side if you need a 13 row thermostatic controlled oil cooler and oil filter adapter for a 1300 herlad/spitfire engine my email’s in my profile 🙂

[edit] currently have to drive my wife’s car to get my ‘old car motoring’ fix. It’s not quite the same, have to say…

will be for sale in a few months I think if you want somethign quite pink.

I miss my Herald. My second car, but so lovely to drive.
Just check the brake line behind the heater isn’t rusted. It can surprise you if it goes pop.

My first car was a Triumph Herald. A 13/60 soft-top. It was like driving a roller skate. I loved it!!!!

Get one!

How much would one of these be to buy and insure?

to buy a good one = lots, to insure on limited mileage = cheapish.

Ex girlfriends dad had a Vitesse convertible in lovely condition. He was happy for us to take it out for ‘drives around the countryside’…… happy happy days!

Wwaswas that’s lovely 😉 there is a mint condition morris minor the estate one near me its gorgeous it looks like new the fella who drives it goes about ten mph everywhere and looks about 100 so its prob not even been done up just looked after

Any car of that age and rust/bad restoration will be a concern, plus the on-going mechanical repairs needed. You WILL have to fix something most weeks! If that floats your boat then why not. The Vitesse which is a 2 litre Herald to affect would be a better choice, but either being good examples will cost you the same as a newish car.

I’ve ‘done’ a few Spitfires but haven’t updated my galleries lately
http://www.peterflynnclassiccars.com is me 🙂

I personally love Heralds and Vitesses, not so fond of Spitfires, always thought of them as ‘hairdressers cars’, back when I was into customs and street rods. I’m just thinking of availability, you seldom see Heralds around, whereas there are lots of Moggies, and there’s a company in Bristol, was in Bath, that does restoration and replacement body shells and other parts. Because the Moggy used standard BMC parts, it’s easy to swap parts from other models, like Riley and Wolesley, Austin and MG. The huge Riley drum brakes on the front of my old ’53 split-screen could practically stand it on it’s nose! The van rear axle was stronger than earlier saloon ones, which helped stop then ends of the half-axle twisting off. Which I did dumping the clutch out of a pub car park once. A nice touch with Moggies is that you can drop the rear seat back down to put large objects into the boot and through into the cabin. A starting handle came in very handy in cold weather too. Very practical little car, and you should be able to find good clean ones for reasonable money. There are pick-ups, vans and the lovely Traveller, but the timber frame is expensive to replace, and the car falls apart if it’s rotten. Watch for the lower kingpin joint though. If not kept well greased, the thread wears and the ‘pin jumps out of the joint, causing the front wheel to flip out sideways, which can be distracting!
Happened to a mate. Twice! The sparks were spectacular in the dark. Easy to avoid with a grease gun.

Excellent choice though, meccano cars it will rust and go wrong but is easily fixable.

I had a mate with a Herald Estate that we used to take down to Poly, Farnham to Plymouth, close to 200 miles… starter was gone so it always had to be parked at the top of a hill, gearbox was knackered so it was get into fourth as soon as possible then use a bungey to hold it in gear …. worked like that for years.

I replaced a Dolly Sprint (having dropped valves into the engine) with a spitfire, swapped the shocks and springs as well as pancake airfilters and straight through exhaust … the spitfire was much more fun, you could manage understeer, oversteer and 4 wheel drifts all under 30mph… it taught me loads 🙂

Blimey, My first car was a Spitfire as well – 1500 with O/D soft & hard tops + tonneau cover for all year flexibility. It was white with brown rust all over the place.

Absolutely loved it and good fun to work on (which you do a lot!)

Watch for rust everywhere!

Replaced my Herald with something identical to this as my wife said we needed a 4 door car after the birth of our son;

still have it (well, technically, it’s at some blokes in London but I’ve lost contact with him)

What about a mgb my first was a roadster (convertible) had it for twenty years and only just sold it 🙁 but the bgt (hardtop) might be a better choice both are available from dirt cheap to outrageous and have plenty of spares backup, could fancy a bgt with a full webasto sunroof

re: my previous post;

Just did a google – the bloke who has my cars funeral was last month 🙁

Spoke to someone who knows him and he’s going to go over and see if the car’s still at his premesis in Putney.

Those old Vitesses are lovely. 2L straight 6 wasn’t it?

The Herald was a lovely car. Can’t remember if they all came with removable hard top.

Nice wooden dash and the mechanicals made purposeful noises as you drove along.

My personal favourite was the early MG Midget.

Lotus Elan’s were great, but too expensive. Most ended up in Japan where they had/have a cult following amongst the rich Japanese car buffs. There was a firm near Snetterton that used to rebuild Elan’s to concours condition, using a tubular chassis and numerous other upgrades. The cars came out of there better than new!

A Triumph Herald would be a great first car. The herald is easy to drive and easy to fix. A famously small turning circle and good (discs at the front) brakes for the time. The smaler engined 1200 models are the prettiest. The chrome trim on the 1200 is useful because it marks-out the corners of the car for easy manouvering. The best car in the world for changing spark plugs; flip-up the bonnet and there is a place to sit (on the wheel) and a useful shelf for a mug of tea and tools. Very civilised.
Common faults are; rotten chassis rails and a broken syncromesh on second. New bits are readily available.

Check out the Triumph Sports Six Club