We are deep into the body restoration of this Triumph Italia at this point. Once all the lead and bondo was stripped off, we found lots of rust lurking underneath. For the body restoration, we turned to Hank Van Gaale of SLO Works. SLO Works is located right next door to us and we are very lucky to have access to such a great shop. Hank is an expert metal worker and did an amazing job of hand fabricating all of the panels.
Once the car was mounted on Hanks jig, we found that the driver’s door post had been pushed in more than three-inches due to prior accident damage, and the driver’s front fender was almost two-inches higher than the passenger fender. The whole car was literally twisted. With lots of pulling and beating we were able to get the car back straight and sitting just like it should. Bellow, you’ll find we’ve documented the entire process Hank has gone through to get this car looking like it does now. It was a long, tedious process but we could not be more pleased with the finished product.
The car is now off to the paint and body shop where they will be doing all of the fine detail work to ensure an excellent paint job that will last. Please be sure to sign up for our feed or check back often to see the progress on this rare Triumph Italia.
View slideshow to see all 42 photos from this set.
1962 Triumph Italia Restoration Part 2
Great job bringing this beauty back to life! If I ever win the lottery, an Italia is on my list!
I am amazed at how bad the body was on this triumph – amazing work to bring it back. I have a 1965 TR4 that I bought and ‘restored’ when I was 15/16. I am now 50 and still have the car. I have thought about restoring it a second time, but have hesitated as I know how much work is involved. Generally, I think it is more cost effective to buy an already restored vehicle. However, after seeing how far-gone this triumph Italia was, (much much worse than my TR4) I may take another look! Great and informative web site. Thx. JW
yeah…. we knew it was twisted. We weren’t sure whether it was because of the TR4 frame or because of an accident. What an amazing amount of work… just thankful it wasn’t me because it is way beyond anything I could have done. Keep up the good work. Enjoying watching someone else doing it.
Its good to see some one suffering as much as me, E Smith
They are a lot of work but well worth it!