Bling Bling

It's all about the Bling!

I removed the rear badges from the Spit. The restoration person, it appears, did not place that much on originality and only a few of the Fix Attachments for the badges were in place. About 6 original were in place, very rusty and generally a PAIN to get off. The remaining posts were being held on by what appears to be Electrical Heat Shrink. This came off pretty handily with a pair of needle nose pliers.

I will add a picture of the rear without the badges at a later date as it was a very dim, grey and rainy afternoon when the removal took place.

On looking into the matter, the Attachents are only about $.35 cents each! Well thinking further, 14 @ $.25, 3 @ $.45 and 2 @ $.25 so a total of $5.35 to be able to attach the badges? That money can be better spent elsewhere, I plan to re-use heat shrink idea, which made them easier to come off.

All the chrome badges are pretty rough, the letter set TRIUMPH have deep scratches in the chrome though none of the scratches break through the chrome layer. The MK3 badge is in fine condition, with only minor pitting under the badge and no deep scratches. By far the worst is the Spitfire badge, with 3-4 pits through the chrome on the top, cracking of the chrome on the front, and lots of pitting on the underside of the badge. All are definitely usable though.

Those letters are a pain to photo off the car.

These are very easy to photo.

This final picture is from scans of the badges laying directly on a flatbed scanner, making for some very odd coloring of the chrome based on the angle. Rest assured all pieces are shiny and blinged out. With careful manipulation with Gimp, an open source image manipulation program, I was able to line up all the badges and make a pretty impressive transparent image.

One of the things missing on modern cars are this level of artistic use of chrome, leaving cars without style and attitude. I beg automakers to make more fun and artistic cars. Also, BMW owns the rights to the Triumph line and I would press on them that round-tails would make an excellent throwback car to place on the road today if safety concerns could be worked out. Hint Hint to BMW, a Spitfire would make for a excellent throwback car, lets all hope to be able to buy a 2011 Spitfire MK 5.