Rumor has it that a company in Coventry have the rights and tooling for the Triumph (more correctly Alford & Adler) upright (which is used on loads of early Lotuses and still on Caterham. Any one know how to find them - google is being reticent.

yup they do exist and no you wont find them on the internet, try talking to Canley Classics to see if they'll put you in touch as they have pretty close links with them allegedly - the problem you'll find is that it's not in anyone who they supply's interest to put you in direct contact with them so they'd really rather not.....

Oh I love a mystery - they must have a name though!

Well well well, they are selling a the Triumph Vitesse upright, stub axle and caliper mounting, top and bottom joints.

http://www.canleyclassics.com/catalogue.asp?id=gt6mki_frontsuspension&scale=small[url=http://www.canleyclassics.com/catalogue.asp?id=gt6mki_fronts uspension&scale=small" target="_blank">Linky

That is the same upright as used on all the early Lotuses, and many F1 cars from the 1960s.

It ought to be possible to design a set of wishbones around that upright and lose the dependency on the vanishing Cortina part or chunky Sierra item. Plus sort out the caster while at it.

Yeah it's all good stuff - not the low cost option it may appear at first though once you look into it properly - for a full front end setup with a Ford PCD (and excluding brakes) you're looking at about £6-700 using a combination of Canleys and Merlin Motorsport parts. Which suprise suprise is a very similar price to what Caterham charge.........

Ugh - trunnions......

Spent many an hour as a lad replacing Triumph trunnions High mileage or badly maintained lower trunnions can fail but I suspect on our cars they would be fine.

Actually there don't have to be any trunnions involved Canelys have started supplying triumph uprights that fit into a spherical bearing at the bottom instead of your traditional trunnion. It's the same setup Caterham use (and the uprights for both companies are almost certainly made by the same mythical company in Coventry). TBH it's pretty much an ideal upright package for small light kitcars but it ends up being quite a bit more expensive than using cortina or sierra bits and tbh I suspect not many people would notice the difference.

[Edited on 27/4/08 by D Beddows]