Forward radiator

Apols for not posting for ages - been working on the car! :-) Anyway the heading for this entry isn't cooling systems :-) it's about the company Forward Radiator Ltd. They werea wholly owned subsidiary of Standard Triumph and based in Birmingham. The importance of the company to FC316 and other very early Spitfires is that Forward Radiator built the bodies for the car.

The interesting bit for early car afficionados is that when Forward radiator started building bodies for the Spitfire they were using very cheap tooling for the panels etc. BL who had just taken over Standard Triumph were cutting costs all over the place and invested a very meagre £200,000 in machine tooling for the Spitfire range (as well as liberally using the Herald parts bin of course!) £200, 000 was a gamble - just enough to get the job done - not nearly enough if the car proved a runaway success (which of course it was!). Soon after the October launch with orders of over £7 million in the first week something had to be done and a massive investment in tooling improvement began this included redesign of some panels.

So the early car bodies were built on cheap presses and it's for this they are different to almost every other Spitfire produced. The cheaper lamp fittings; pop rivetted bonnet catch runners on the upper a post rather than the very familiar angled runner in the pressing and welded in cut out sections on the petrol tank (1963 cars onwards had the cut out as part of the panel pressing.

I'm fortunate that FC316 has all these elements still in place and they won't need to be wholly replaced (although lots of other holey bits will!).

To finish - work going ok on the restoration - I've been cutting out the old "D" panels and supports on the bonnet today (already removed the front wings which were rotten through!) the good news is that the front grill panel is in good condition and the light panels are also pretty good with just minor patching required. The main bonnet panel is likewise in great condition.

I've also been trying to organise again annd label up all the bolts, bushes and other bits and bobs in a more orderly fashion :-)