Hello. It’s been a long while since I first talked about putting my car company on the forums, and now, at long last…
[size=175]It’s here.[/size]
The Spitfire Motor Company as we know it today was started up in February of 2000, but actually, the company can trace its roots back to the 1940’s. Kenneth William Mason, born March 4, 1917, was a natural mechanic right from the start. He started working on motors by the age of 10, and by his mid 20’s, he became an aircraft repairman during World War 2. He loved working on planes, but liked cars even more, and when the war ended, he began to design a car. Preston Tucker had the same idea in that same year, 1948, but his idea had been a failure, whereas Mason was determined that his car would be successful.
The first car was complete, and all Mason needed was a name for both the company and the car. He chose Spitfire, after his favorite fighter, and K1 for the car, “K” standing for Ken, his name, and “1” meaning his first car. Meant to be a new car in the endless sea of prewar cars, it targeted the “budget luxury” market, and surprisingly, for a first effort, did rather well. Mason capitalized on this success by introducing a second generation in 1953, and an all new sports car, the K100, in 1955.
Two years later, he was even able to create a brand new company, Alamanda Motors, which would be a luxury division of Spitfire. This brand would last all the way until 1982, when it was cut off due to budget cuts. Spitfire enjoyed a relatively large success until 1994, when suddenly, the entire company and all its remaining subsidiaries (Transport Automobiles and Helix Performance) went bankrupt, and they were forced to close. However, Ken’s son, Bradley Mason, sought to revive the company, and in 2000, introduced the 5th generation K100 sports car, known as the K500. With that car, they were successfully able to rebuild themselves, and today, enjoy good sales. Spitfire’s subsidiaries also returned, with Transport coming a few months after Spitfire, Helix returning in 2004, and Alamanda finally came back in 2013.
Anyway, here is the first car I have ever shown on the Automation forums:
[size=150]Spitfire Troposphere[/size]
The Spitfire Troposphere is a luxury compact car, with its base model meant to compete against top models of other cars of the same size (i.e. Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Chevy Cruze, etc.). Styling involves a huge amount of chromework at the front, making it look larger and more upscale than it really is. The model shown here is the Troposphere B, or the Base model. Even though it’s a base, it comes with loads of toys to play with, such as parking sensors all around, a rearview camera, and two more in the side mirrors, heads-up-display that can give you turn-by-turn directions, and a center console GPS screen that can slide out of the console so the driver doesn’t have to look down. Comment your thoughts and suggestions below!
