I missed the bulk of this thread, but I assume from what I did see it was
about what people drove in college. Most people started at the bottom and
progressed upwards in terms of the quality and "coolness" of their cars. I
sort of went the other way. I started college with an Austin Healey 3000
which a previous owner had fitted with a Jaguar XK engine. A bit of a
mistake, this. The car went like the bugger on the straight but the
balance was off and it didn't corner so well (not that 3000s corner all
that well, anyway).
The Colorado State University sports car club held races- well, time trials
really- up the winding road in the bottom of the Poudre River canyon. This
was in the 1960s and they used to close off the road for us. I'm sure this
kind of activity would never be allowed today. The Healey was great fun in
these events if for no other reason that it was always a big guess as to
how it would react in each curve. But who in college is into handling and
stuff- the car looked great and sounded fabulous with it's twin pipes
exiting just ahead of the rear wheel on the drivers side, which is what it
was all about, right?
I should have kept this car, as we all should have kept something we owned
in our youth, but I sold it when I transferred to the University of Hawaii
in the late '60s. There I inherited my mother's 1962 VW Beetle, which I
drove until I bought the Land Rover in 1973.
I envy the people I see with Austin Healey 3000s today. It's one of those
cars that, in my opinon, the designers got just right in terms of the
lines, at any rate. Were I able to go back and do it all again, I'd have
kept the car, which was in mint condition physically, lost the XK engine,
and put back a Healey engine. It wasn't as sophisticated a powerplant as
the XK, but based on the stock Healey 3000s I've driven, I think it was
actually better suited to the car.
In high school I had a girlfriend who's older brother had an MG-TD. He
used to let us borrow it sometimes when we went on dates. That was a fun
car to drive, although in retrospect it was pretty crude and gutless. But
in its day, it was quite a cool thing to be driving around in.
It's funny how things that are looked down on when they're new gain great
status when they get old (except people....:-) ) Our neighbor's new
husband has an immaculate Ford Edsel, which I believe is a flip top. I
seem to recall that Ford made flip-top Edsels in addition to the more
common, what was it, Galaxy 500? The guy next door just moved the car from
wherever it was stored into the garage, so I've not had a chance to examine
it. But my wife, who has seen it close up, says it's better than new.
It's apparently worth quite a bit, but I can remember walking to school in
the '60s in Honolulu and seeing my first Edsel on the road. God, everyone
thought it was ugly. We all made fun of the vertical grill, but today, I
actually think the front end is a very nice design. The back end, on the
other hand, is rather ugly.
The car I still kick myself for not keeping was an Aston Martin DB-4, but
that's a whole other story and not related to college. I did have a mint
condition National Match M-1 Garand rifle in college in Colorado, which I
also sold when I returned to Hawaii, another Stoopid Kid blunder.
________________________
C. Marin Faure
(original owner)
1973 Land Rover Series III-88
1991 Range Rover Vogue SE
Seattle, WA
marin.faure@boeing.com
faurecm@earthlink.net
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