GT6 Colours

It began, as these things often do, with the colour. The initial flirtation was with Jaguar’s Opalescent Golden Sand – a shade that whispered "period elegance" while quietly hinting at mid-life crisis. For a brief moment, it was all but chosen. But then I saw an MGC in Aston Martin California Sage Green on a car restoration programme – it appeared on screen like a siren on the roadside – and that was that. One look, and my loyalties shifted faster than a Westminster backbencher sensing a Cabinet reshuffle.

I even toyed with the idea of a golden sand centre stripe for the exterior – something to break up the sage and add a whisper of flair – but in the cold light of day it felt a bit too AC Cobra. More "weekend warrior with a blower" than refined grand tourer. It risked turning subtle into shouty, and I wasn’t building a replica – I am building a statement, not a pastiche.

It didn’t help that the original Triumph palette was, to put it kindly, hideous – a parade of browns, beiges and inexplicably murky greens that looked like they'd been chosen by a colour-blind accountant during a power cut. I merely wanted to repaint the car. A straightforward task, one might think – pick a hue, tell the man with the spray gun, job done. But no. This was not merely a car. This was the car: the GT6 Plus. Or GT6R. Or GTM. Or possibly GT7. Depending on which particular existential crisis I happened to be having that afternoon.

You see, this won't be just a Triumph GT6. I could keep it original – worshipped at the altar of matching numbers and spent my twilight years stuck behind lorries on the A417 with 105 horses gasping for breath. But I want something I could actually drive – something that wouldn’t boil over in traffic, sulk in the cold, or pirouette into a hedge if I so much as sneezed on the throttle.

So into the planning went a Mazda 1.8 turbo. And, for the sake of my knees and my marriage, an automatic gearbox. I’ll probably have to upgrade the chassis to cope with the extra shove – power's no good if the thing twists like a liquorice whip every time I put my foot down. Fortunately, the donor chassis I bought came with an MX5 rear axle already grafted in, which should sort the handling – or at least make it less suicidal.

Besides, the nostalgia market has already had its day. Early '70s classics have peaked – their values have flattened and their buyers are either too old to drive or too young to care. It’s no longer about concours correctness; it’s about usable individuality. A car dragged into the 21st century is more of an investment now than one embalmed in originality. Longevity lives in reliability, comfort, and the ability to overtake a modern hatchback without steam or shame.

The numbers? Silly. With around 185 horsepower and under a tonne to push, the automatic should hit 60 in five seconds. The manual, 4.8. That’s Cayman pace – in a car old enough to remember the three-day week. And yes, there’ll be aircon. If I’m modernising the thing, I’m not about to melt into my leather interior like a concours martyr stranded at Silverstone.

And then – the great wheel debate.

Minilites or wires? The former says "Goodwood track day," the latter whispers "Cheltenham pensioner's run to Waitrose." One screams purposeful aggression, the other murmurs cucumber sandwich. I flirted with both. I even asked the AI to show me both side-by-side, but the tool failed more often than a post-Brexit trade agreement. Several hours and hundreds of megabytes later, I was none the wiser – but markedly more irritable.

 

Initially, I couldn’t even get ChatGPT to render a GT6 properly. It kept offering me a sort of genetic cross between a TR4A IRS and a Spitfire – presumably what happens when you feed British Leyland's design archives through a blender. Helpful, in a vaguely surrealist sense, but not quite what I had in mind. Last week, however, it discovered what a GT6 actually looked like.

And then came the interior. That was its own minefield. Tan? Too obvious. Bottle green? Too funereal. Sage? Too matchy-matchy. What I eventually landed on was something between mint, eucalyptus, and a 1950s NHS waiting room – and to my great surprise, it was bloody gorgeous. The leather dilemma alone could’ve powered a mid-sized blog series, but it turned out the right shade does exist – somewhere between daring and dignified. There’s a lesson there, though I’m not entirely sure what it is.

 

I spent more time dithering over colours, dashboards, and badge lettering than most people spend choosing a spouse. GT6 Plus? GT7 Plus? GT†? My personal favourite for a moment was just a dagger symbol, which felt appropriate given how many times I’d mentally stabbed myself trying to pick a name. Eventually, I landed on GT7 Plus – because the "6" was a lie, and seven is a lucky number. Or at least luckier than trying to tell the DVLA you’ve swapped in a Japanese drivetrain and still want free road tax.

And so, here it is. A Triumph GT6 that isn’t really a GT6, painted in a colour never on the options list, trimmed in a hue not found in nature, and powered by an engine from Hiroshima, badged with a number that refers to nothing at all, and fitted with wheels that change depending on which side of the bed I get out of.

In short, it’s perfect. Although I'm still deliberating over the Minilites or wires.

As you can see from the image below, ChatGPT still doesn't understand completely how the bonnet works.

This is still the planning phase – and already it’s taken on the weight of a papal conclave crossed with a constitutional convention. By the time I tighten a spanner, I’ll have held three referenda and commissioned a logo in chrome and Latin.

And let’s be honest – this is going to be expensive. I’ll probably have to sell the 500SL to fund the mods, which feels rather like pawning a Cartier watch to buy a custom espresso machine – arguably mad, but ultimately justifiable if the result brings more joy.

Thank God for ChatGPT being able to render my delign thoughts into something gorgeous.

Oh, and the brightwork and new windscreen that No.1 Son bought me for my 70th birthday have arrived from Rimmer Brothers – they were waiting for the windscreen before shipping, which is why it took nearly two months.