Last week we explored the infinite joy inherent to all French LeMons race cars. Today we hop the Chunnel and head to the land of boiled monkfish, Joe Lucas, and the birthplace of this 1969 Triumph GT6 MkII – jolly old England. Known to hopeless, bloody knuckled types the world round as the “poor man’s E-type,” the MkII was able to cough up a stunning 104 hp for the 12 days between leaving the dealer and it’s first scheduled maintenance. We figure that this particular British racing green little devil will make substantially less. But that’s OK, because you’ll be lightening the GT6 for the race, right? The good news is the Triumph is way ahead of you. “There is rust in the floorboards really bad and on the passenger side you can see the ground”, claims the current owner. Plus, is there a man alive that doesn’t love SU carburetors? Fun fact: SU stands for Skinner Union, and before they started making carbs they made… toilets! [flush that – those are Strombergs. See correction from Jay Lamm below – ed] And the Triumph’s price couldn’t be righter — just $500. Do you smell what Judge Jonny smells? A sure fire winner! Cheers to the miscreants heroic racers that make up the 24 Hours of LeMons forum (and their leader, Loren) for finding this future nickels-winning treasure.
Disclaimer: A mild mannered motoring journalist by day, Jonny Lieberman dons the robe and econo-barrister wig as Judge Jonny on the 24 Hours of LeMons racing circuit. Together with Justice Murilee Martin they comprise the LeMons Supreme Court.
Correction from Chief Perp Lamm:
Those carbs are Strombergs, not SUs. You can tell because Stromberg took many years and billions of dollars of development to come up with a way to make the SU design even less reliable than it already was. The dashpot bowls are tall like Campbell’s Soup cans in SUs, because they contain a sliding aluminum piston. On Strombergs they’re flat and dumpy, like a kreplach, because the company replaced the aluminum piston with a flat rubber diaphragm that could be dissolved by–you guessed it–gasoline. Brilliant!
How drunk would you say you get during these events…very or extremely? [all we have to say is don’t judge and drive – ed]
Sadly, most tracks have a no alcohol policy. But NOT South Carolina!
I don’t get it. Where are the SU nee Stromberg carbs? I don’t see any pictures of them?
I had a renault 5 with an SU on it once. It still makes me shudder to think of it…
Is it bad that I want to pick this up and put it in my garage, spending countless hours wasting my money and time to try to bring it back to life?
I almost got one of these as my first car except in white. My dad thought better of it when he thought about his days as a euro car mechanic and the fun of British cars.