EXTRA TIME

Our three sports car greats sped past their original lifespans, becoming classics in their own lifetimes and eventually inspiring a new generation

- AARON MCKAY

It’s 1967, five years after the MGB, Elan and Spitfire first hit the street. A sunny Saturday afternoon on the King’s Road has more than its fair share of sports cars, poseurs and would-be passengers. But one particular man-about-town is feeling pretty sharp because he’s just picked up the latest Mk2 MGB. A brief stop at the lights shows the difference: he selects first gear with ease, and with full synchromesh, there’s nothing but a clean burble from the exhaust as the B pulls away. The new three-speed auto could have been smoother still; so too the six-cylinder MGC.

Just around the corner, there’s a youngster in shades with a mop-top haircut that’s being blown about by spurts of acceleration. Thinking that his latest MkIII Triumph Spitfire – with Le Mans-spec 1296cc eight-port engine and big brake calipers – turns him into a budding Jackie Stewart, he nearly clips the nose of an Emma Peel lookalike’s new Lotus Elan S3 SE as it carefully edges out of a side street.

The 118bhp Elan had nothing to prove, but even at a slow pace its newly servo-assisted brakes helped avoid an expensive mistake and an embarrassing scene amid the Chelsea shoppers.

Britain’s sports car industry is flourishing, and not just on the hazy summer streets of London. Exports sales are higher than ever, with over 60% of Mk1 MGBs sold having been delivered to North America, and Spitfires nearly matching that, while even the relatively small-scale Lotus was chasing volume by moving to its new Hethel production facility. Nearly 8000 Elans had been built by the end of the year, a phenomenal result for founder Colin Chapman, but it was the continued success of MG and Triumph that really set the tone, with more than 20,000 of each leaving the factory lines every year.