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1980 Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks

Working in the automotive industry for over a decade means that I've had the privilege of meeting a lot of people, ranging from race drivers, engineers, company owners, photographers, and event organizers. You don't always get to keep in touch with everyone you know, but in some cases, the connection is still there regardless of distance. And I think that my connection to Ciprian has been kept alive by our mutual passion for old, rusty cars.
Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks 16 photos
Photo: Ciprian Strugariu
Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the QuirksTriumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks
Ciprian Strugariu is one of Romania's best-known fashion photographers, but he also occasionally likes to sit in the director's seat on movie sets. While he can't rival the likes of Hugh Heffner, his photo studio has had more top models coming in to have their pictures taken than most men can even dream of.

He has chosen this path ever since he finished college back in 2006, and has never looked back since. While we won't dive into the endless stream of glamour shots he's taken over the years, one thing's for sure: he does have a keen eye for beauty.

As most of his friends started getting their driver's licenses, it was only a matter of time before he started feeling a strange connection with cars. Be it that he was attending a car meet, or jumping behind the wheel for an 8-hour drive, cars somehow made sense to him.

With the occasional street race every once in a while, it all added up to a sum of emotions that could easily be described as freedom, independence, and adrenaline. And once you get hooked up to that kind of life, there's only one way to go: forward and faster!

Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks
Photo: Ciprian Strugariu
And going faster wasn't going to be difficult at all for the young, aspiring photographer. The first cars he had experienced were early model sedans with a Dacia logo on them. These were all pretty basic vehicles, with no potential of ever reaching record speeds.

That didn't mean he couldn't have fun in them, which included mounting a subwoofer or abusing the handbrake while going around various corners. Ciprian didn't go straight after a sports car at first. His journey took him off the beaten path, as he opted to go off-road back in 2008.

It was his 1985 Mitsubishi Pajero that gave him a sense of what it means to devote yourself to building a car. Fast forward to the next decade, he realized he wanted to get behind the wheel of a convertible. He had no clear definition of what he was after, other than the requirement to drive with the roof down.

So he started probing the Internet for a solution. Stumbling upon the Triumph Spitfire 1500 felt like love at first sight. Having bookmarked the ad for this particular 1980 model, it took him two months to call the previous owner.

Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks
Photo: Ciprian Strugariu
While the British roadster was first introduced at the London Motor Show in 1962, Ciprian's Spitfire is a last-generation model and it was built in the final year of production. Reportedly, just under 96,000 units of the Spitfire 1500 were made, so you could say that this is a pretty special car indeed.

While the car was built for the German market, it had already made its way to Eastern Europe when he found it online. Lucky for Ciprian, the previous owner in Germany had taken extra good care of the car, and there was extensive evidence of proper maintenance throughout the years.

While its former Romanian owner had been treating it as a garage queen, that wasn't going to be the case any longer. "I always intended to enjoy the car and to experience it at its fullest" And so he did. But, as you would proceed with any old car, more maintenance work was required first.

The engine, suspension, carburetors, joints, and exhaust all needed a bit of reconditioning before everything could run all smooth again. Well, as smooth as a 40+-year-old car can run, this Triumph does have its quirks and occasional hiccups.

Triumph Spitfire Is Not a Garage Queen, Gets Love From Its Owner Despite the Quirks
Photo: Ciprian Strugariu
But in the past four years, Ciprian has driven the car on every possible occasion. As a result, half of the current overall mileage has been covered with him behind the wheel: driving to other countries, racing on the track, going to retro parades, and so on so forth. Curious as to how it feels to drive a Spitfire down the road, I asked him to summarize the experience in a few words:

"Driving this car is an assault on all your senses, it's low and light, grip levels are excellent and there are no driver aids. It's not fast, but it does feel like it. I would also add that it can be quite unpredictable at times from a reliability point of view. But after spending so much time with it, I know that I can fix it even with the most basic of tools. There's nothing I don't love about it!"

Ciprian has done what any automotive enthusiast that wants to maintain his sanity should do, and that's not keeping track of car-related expenses. There's always something that needs fixing, but then again you don't need the car to be 100% operational at all times to enjoy it.

Somehow I get the feeling that he won't be letting go of his Triumph anytime soon, if ever. But it's a good thing that he also has a few other cool cars in his garage, including a 1965 Ford Thunderbird and a 1990 Honda CRX.

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About the author: Dragos Chitulescu
Dragos Chitulescu profile photo

The things Dragos enjoys the most in life are, in no particular order: cars, motorcycles, diecast cars, and drifting. He's seen (and driven) many vehicles since he started his writing career back in 2009, but his garage currently houses a 1991 Mazda RX-7 FC3S Turbo II and a 1999 Suzuki SV650-S.
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