Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[theopenroad]

I have been asked to find out the purchase price, when new, of a Triumph Spitfire in 1976.

It would have been a Spitfire 1500.

I need the UK price in Pounds.

I have a price from 1980 of £3,631 so am assuming it would have been less than that.

Does anyone out there know?
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[lowdrag]

I have the road test annual review in Motor Sport dated February 1976 and it was priced at £1,833.39 then. It averaged 34.9 mpg and the standing quarter in 19 seconds. Inflation was rife at that time, over 20% p.a., so in 1976 I reckon it would have been over £2,000

[theopenroad]

Thanks for that. I would appreciate it if anyone can get nearer to 1976.

Currently I have £1,833 for 1974 and £3,631 ffor 1980 which is a huge gap.

Although having lived through the 1970s I do remember that inflation was up around the 20% mark for a couple of years.
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[lowdrag]

I only have Autocar up to 1974 and I've looked through every 1976 Motor Sport but no adverts. Can't help further but a phone call to Gaydon would probably elicit what you seek.

[Roger-hatchy]

Try this

http://www.autocar.co.uk/CarReviews/RoadTestsHistory/Triumph-Spitfire-1500/229689/

[theopenroad]

Thanks for the Autocar link.

This now presents me with a dilemma. I have a price for 1974 of £1,834 this shows a 1975 price of £1,509

I wouldn't have thought the price would have gone down by over £300 by nearly 18%.
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[lowdrag]

It would seem that one or the other of the Motor Sport editions is wrong. The road test article of March 1975 quotes a different price to that quoted in the roundup article of February 1976. Here (1975) it quotes £1,681 including overdrive (£113),option pack (centre arm rest, inertia belts, dipping mirror, head restraints and map light £39)) and a laminated screen so this was a well equipped model. Deduct the extras and the base price was £1,529 then. Using the RPI calculator the price would have risen to £1,781. Can't do more than that I am afraid. They also comment that the first Spitfire in 1963 cost £654.

Edit; could that be the price rise because of huge inflation between the 3/75 road test and the 2/76 article? If so you then have your 1976 price as you want.

[47Jag]

Before we came home from Canada for good in 1977 we made a trip in 1976 to assess prices.
I had agreed to come home if I could have a new car. I priced a Volvo 245 in '76 and it was £4444. In '77 when we got home it was £5555. That's how bad inflation was.

Art

[theopenroad]

Thanks

I knew there would be enough people out there who would have the right information between them.

Hooray for what Jereny Clarkson calls 'the interweb'.
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[theopenroad]

Just sticking on inflation for a minute of so, I remember one year getting a pay increase of 26% to keep up with inflation. There is a lot to be said for current inflation of around 2%.

I also remember that this was the start of the UK 'company car' culture. When the government brought in a wage and prices freeze, companies were only allowed to give very low pay increase - a figure of 2.5% springs to mind but I can't be 100% certain. So to get round this the company I worked for offered interest free 'London Loans' to allow employees working in central London to buy annual season tickets. And then managers started being given company car allowances, or company cars to top up their wages.

Since then all such perks have become taxable, but 26% inflation has a lot to answer for.

Enough of economic history and back to the important things in life - classic cars.
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[Rick]

Is the Spitty a new addition to the fleet??

R
_________________
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[theopenroad]

No it isn't.

Because of The Open Road and the other website I run www.classiccarhireworld.com I tend to rceive all sorts of unusual calls.

I received a call from someone in Monaco, I think, wanting to know, as they were planning to import one and tax was going to be charged on its purchase price, when new, not its current value.

We had a Spitfire 1500 on The Open Road's classic car hire fleet for a couple of years but had to let it go. There was very little demand for it.

The demand in classic car hire tends to be for the more iconic, exciting, faster, more powerful cars. The spitfire doesn't really hit those criteria.

Tony
_________________
Tony Merrygold
The Open Road - Classic Car Hire
www.theopenroad.co.uk

[giles]

If you run your own little business, you can have your company "own" your clasic car, and provide it to you as a company car.

The "taxable benefit" is based on a percentage of the car's list price when new, so for sufficiently old cars that cost hundreds of pounds, or maybe a couple of grand or so, it is almost nothing at all.

Since it is a company owned vehicle, the company can then pay for all maintenance, servicing and insurance etc.

So these costs come out of your pre-tax earnings, not out of your net earnings.

And if your company is VAT registered, you benefit there, as well, because any garage bills VAT charges can be offset against the VAT the business pays on its own invoices.