Sir John Black understood Britain’s dire post-war financial need to export or perish and he looked to the American market as a place where he would really like to sell cars. What was left of Triumph, which wasn’t much more than the name, was purchased by Sir John Black’s Standard Car Company on December 31, 1945.

Sadly Coventry was a city where many of the classic British cars were made and as a result of the Nazi bombing some were destroyed, notably Triumph, who had a long history of making beautiful motor cars. Bombing Britain turned out to be about as profitable as poking a stick into a hornet’s nest expecting the frightened hornets to flee away. Although this had worked quite well for the Nazis in other parts of Europe it didn’t in their efforts to conquer Britain: the pesky British just seemed to get more and more determined. Triumph and The Blitzĭuring the “Blitz” of 1940 the industrial city of Coventry had rather a lot of bombs dropped on it by the Nazi Luftwaffe in their efforts to bomb Britain into submission. It was however much less expensive to buy, a lot cheaper to run, and it was enormous fun. The Triumph Spitfire sports car however had a diminutive four cylinder engine, no machine guns, and only spat fire if the engine was so out of tune that it caused a backfire in the exhaust.

The original Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft was powered by a huge supercharged Rolls-Royce V12 engine and was fitted with up to eight machine guns so that it truly did spit fire from engine exhausts and guns. The paradoxical thing about the Triumph Spitfire is that it didn’t spit fire.

Spitfire clothing stock symbol