Well... I just couldn't see this one getting away. A gentleman scanning the web, stumbled upon, and then contacted the NASS group, asking if we knew anyone interested in his Spitfire.  Well heck.... turns out he was only 15 minutes down the road from MY house!  So after talking to him via email and on the phone, I ran over to take a look at it to post info to the membership.  I helped him, by writing up a web page, posting the photos I'd taken, and helped him setup a classified ad on the nasshq.org site.

   Gail (my s.o.) went down with me the second time, to get pictures of the spare parts he had that he was selling as well.  I guess while the women were talking, while Tom and I were chatting and digging parts out of the attic, Gail decided she liked it.  Two days later, Gail hands me a wad of cash and says "You should buy it"  WHAT! I have enough irons in the fire. Oh well, what can I say. A week later it was in our garage.

    Thus starts the mongreling of my fleet. Besides, It'll be a learning experience. :-)  You can't learn a subject, without knowing it's history. So... I guess a roundtail restoration is the perfect topping to my knowledge base.

     This IS... going to be an experience. As this is a VERY early MKIII, it's a bit of a mish-mash of systems as compared to what's documented. This is an FD prefix, rather than the FDU serial number car that most people are familiar with. The MKIII's saw the first tandem brake circuit, where this one still has the single circuit brake system. No steering column lock, no emergency flashers, the smaller turn signal lenses in the rear of the earlier MKI & II, etc etc.  What! ha!  Well I be... it even has an 1147cc engine it! No...wait... man oh man!  Even the spare engine is an 1147cc!  They BOTH have FC engine serial number prefixes!  Aaah... what fun this will be.

Thirteen....
     So why the name 'Thirteen'?  I've always claimed 13 was my lucky number. For 26 years... my employee number... was 1317. The nearest Safeway grocery store to my home, was store number 1317. This Spitfire happens to be ...my thirteenth British Sports car I've restored since getting back into LBC's a few years back. I purchased it on November 13th, and got my tags on the 17th. When telling my dad about all the coincidences, he chuckled and told me his post college days baseball jersey number was 13!    'Twas kismet.  :-)