I've been running a "hobby dealership" focused on old European sports cars for several years, and have recently decided to expand the business. This blog will cover some of the early days experiences leading up to this point, and document significant happenings as we go forward. I've already written some notes about the early days, called CarNutz Tales, published on my website, AutoLinc.US. As a start I will publish them here for your amusement. The first few had no editing support from my wife, so are a bit rough. We'll go one at a time, over a period of time, up to the present.
CarNutz Tales #1 - The Craze Develops – Luck Trumps Irresponsibility
My first memory of a developing car craze was sincerely discussing the merits of the ‘53 Studebaker coupe with my new best friend at age 14. About the same time my father taught me to drive and I started chauffeuring my mother (who disliked driving) around the local country roads in her VW. At 16 I got my license, and a bit later my father bought a ’56 Dodge D-500 with a 305 hp Hemi, which he let me drive. The car took me to a 138 mph (indicated) ride one day, then promptly blew a tire when parked, which certainly cemented the adventure in my memory. I haven’t gone that fast since.
As a college sophomore at Rensselaer I managed to buy a ’56 VW with a blown engine for $50 as my first car. A $200 engine transplant and I had my own wheels, and finally access to girls (I was educated at boy’s schools). A fraternity brother with a Jag XK120 wanted the VW so we swapped, but both cars had small disasters and we swapped back after only a week. The VW , a new set of Craftsman tools, and my tight budget taught me how to fix cars. I eventually discovered that wire, tape, a screwdriver, pliers and a lead hammer could fix most on the road problems and fit nicely in the glove box. Senior year saw me buying a ‘58 Ford convertible which promptly got glass packs and a new paint job done with several cans of rattle-can kitchen enamel. The paint looked good and I had a really cool sounding car which made many trips from RPI to Skidmore and back. Beating the girls’ curfew resulted in some pretty irresponsible drives, but I was lucky.
On graduation in ’66 I joined Bechtel Corp. and moved to Washington DC where I bought a nice 1960 Austin Healey 3000. I’ll never forget the first date with my Healey and a beautiful girl I’d just met – I felt I was in a dream. Unfortunately my roommate, though fairly fat and driving an inferior car, had a more interesting personality and got the girl. I didn’t use the Healey’s top much, it was such a bitch to raise, and I greatly enjoyed driving with the tonneau over the passenger seat and heat turned on full – never too little heat in a Healey!! Rain was only a problem if you stopped. In Winter I installed the hardtop and had the distinct impression, while driving late at night with the exhaust moan in my ears, of piloting a prop driven WWII fighter toward enemy territory.
To help save money for grad school during my year with Bechtel I bought, repaired and sold several cars including a Corvair convertible, Triumph TR-4, and Healey Bugeye. These were repaired at night with the help of a streetlamp in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I used to test drive them, sans insurance and with swapped plates, to my parents southern Maryland home on weekends. Once in the TR-4 I noticed an oncoming cop pull over, no doubt attracted by the headlights I’d painted black to look like a race car. He had to wait traffic’s passing to make a U-turn and come after me, so I floored it. Just around a near bend was a barn 50 yards off the road, and I made it behind the barn before the cop saw me. The barn was too small to completely hide me, so I had to keep moving the car to keep the barn between us as the cop passed back and forth, wondering how I’d gotten away. Two weeks before leaving for school I bought a nice but defective Healey Bugeye for $75. I remember single handedly re-installing the repaired transmission into the Bugeye at 2am with the help of a flashlight and creative use of language. It sold for $400 3 days later, and I was off to school.
Life at Purdue wasn’t complete without my sailboat, so I rigged a trailer hitch to the Healey 3000 and towed my 18’ boat and heavy trailer out to West Lafayette and the very small lake to the North. A power line crossed the lake necessitating heeling the boat over to get under it. Two weeks before graduation I had just given up racing another Healey coming back from the lake late at night, when an English Ford filled with kids pulled out directly into my high speed path. I managed to miss them by inches but ended up sliding completely out of control down the road sideways, lying down in the passenger seat. I drifted off the road and then went through a (fortunately thin) telephone pole. I kept the 3’ section of pole I’d broken out, but the creosote smell eventually made it an unwelcome souvenir.
The car had lost its passenger door and windshield and had a deep U shaped impression from the pole about a foot ahead of where my head had been, but it was still drivable. Upon graduation I rigged a small Plexiglas windshield, a piece of plywood where the door had been, loaded the boat and car with my dog and possessions, and set out for home in Maryland accompanied by a buddy in his Volvo. Going through the hills of West Virginia, about 1 am, the engine quit. I eventually found a house with a light on and managed to use their phone to call a tow truck. We ended up at a truck junk yard, in the rain, and slept in a truck trailer. In the morning I discovered a broken distributor shear pin, replaced it with a cut piece of nail and was smiling again. About 6 miles from home the trailer hitch fell off, fortunately at a low speed.
A week later I reported to work at Kodak, still driving my wrecked Healey, which I sold a few weeks later, as Fall rains had arrived. This was 1968. In 2008 I found the same year, same Primrose color car on E-Bay, being sold in a hurry by a Lehman Brothers guy with a better understanding of the near future than I. It waits in my garage for a good repaint, some sorting, and future adventure.
Copyright 2009 – George S. Leopard
